What's In Your Fridge Right Now?

Last night while I ventured over to my fridge hoping to find a little snack, I was horrified at the lack of food I had. What kind of mom am I??

Then I got to thinking, and started cracking myself up, (that happens quite often) it would be interesting to see what was in other people's fridges. Do you think the inside of your fridge says a lot about you? Mine is probably saying "slacker!"

So, I decided to take pictures of what I had and share them with all of you. I have to admit, I do feel a bit weird about this. I feel so exposed!!

Fortunately, the girls were asleep and the hubbs was locked away in his cave so I had no witnesses while I snapped away. I could just imagine the confused expression on my baby's face if she woke up.

"Mama, why are you taking pictures of our food? Are you going to put it on your "puter"?"

or worse yet, if the hubbs caught me.

"You've got to be kidding!"

Luckily my older one sleeps through the night. Finally!!

So, here goes...

If nothing else, I will always have milk in my fridge. My girls drink it faster than I can buy it. At this point, I think we just need our own cow.

We also have 2 kinds of OJ. I'm a Tropicana snob, usually getting Calcium and No Pulp. HATE the pulp! Eeek - feels like you're drinking little bugs. Blah! The hubbs on the other hand couldn't care less so when he's at Stew Leonard's, (his favorite store) he'll just get their brand.

Most of the stuff on the bottom bins probably needs to be thrown away. I don't even want to look.

Next is the inside door.

I love condiments and sauces - gotta have my buffalo wing sauce. Hot and spicy is the way to go. Another must is the Sambazon Acai Juice - expensive, but really good.

If I'm going to share, I may as well bare it all. Here's my freezer...

The girls and the hubbs LOVE ice cream, so there will always be at least 2 containers. There's also a couple of things in there from our last Costco run. As a side note, don't ever go to Costco when you're starving because you will end up buying things that you would never normally buy and when you're sane and not starving anymore, you will open up your freezer and wonder why there's a jumbo sized box of Jamaican Meat Patties.

Trust me on this one - it could happen.

At least the last part of my tour is my saving grace. A whole lotta frozen veggies! Looking at it now, maybe I should have neatened it up a bit. Is my freezer telling you I'm disorganized??

I guess your fridge really does have a lot to say about who you are.

Now that I've shown you mine, I want to see yours!! In the comments section, tell me what's currently in your fridge or better yet, take a picture and include the link. We'll see what your fridge has to say about you!

Tulips in NYC

The best evidence of Springtime is seeing lots of tulips around. I just love tulips! They're my favorite flower. Back when I got married (like 100 years ago), I wanted them in my bouquet but it was late May and by then they weren't in season anymore and it would have been really expensive to get them.

I'm still getting over it. Sometimes it takes me a while.

Well, when I was in the city this week - right around 9th Avenue in the low 60's (or maybe even high 50's) I came across this:

Right in the middle of the city!!

So beautiful.

There were a couple of other ones in the mix

Dafodils??

Very pretty, but I still prefer the tulip.

What's your favorite flower?

Events At B&H

When I decided to buy a new camera back in January of 2009, I of course went to B&H down on 34th street. If you've never been to B&H, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!!!?! Go NOW!!

I love going to B&H. Besides having the best photo equipment, (and a ton of other stuff) I'm always amazed at how this store is run.. It's the most well managed, most efficient store I've ever been to. I think they should start a course for other retailers called "The B&H Way To Retail". I think it would be a huge success!

After I made my purchase and was heading for the door, a woman thanked me for shopping there and handed me a flyer. Without looking at it I stuffed it in my bag and completely forgot about it.

It wasn't until I got home and was unloading my bag of goodies - my new camera and lenses, that I found this flyer again. It was information about their Event Space. Apparently they had FREE workshops going on almost every day. Free? How could that be? How did I not know about this? I found a few I liked and immediately signed up for them.

The B&H Event Space is the best little secret in NY. They have workshops run by very well known photographers that you would normally have to pay tons of money to go hear them speak. Here, it's FREE!! They have varying topics anywhere from basic Photoshop, Lighting, Understanding Your DSLR Camera and even Social Media workshops.

This week, I went to 2 of these events. I absolutely love the whole idea of social networking and blogging so fortunately for me, there were 2 of these events this week.

On Monday, I took the "Blogging for Photographers" workshop which was given by a photographer named Lindsay Adler. (love her business card - it's the 3rd photo on her website) I took a picture of her to show you but it came out way too blurry. Sorry!

I thought it was really good. Lots of info!

Even though I already knew a lot about blogging, there's always something new I pick up so it was well worth it.

On Tuesday, she was back (and so was I) to do a workshop on "New Media and Social Networking For Photographers". The thing that's great about some of these events is that the principles really apply to anyone -not just photographers.

If you've never been to one of these events, go check out the B&H event space website now. Check out the calendar, and sign yourself up for one. Or 2 or 3. You won't be disappointed.

Just remember to bring a sweater - the event room is FREEZING!!!

Spongebob Party Details

Early this month was my daughter's 4th birthday. I already told you about a few of her celebratios, but this past weekend was the big one - her Spongebob birthday party!!

Personally, I am NOT a big Spongebob fan. I don't even know how they started watching it because at one time we did have a "no Spongebob" rule. That obviously went out the window.

There was lots of planning involved but it all seemed to come together.

Here are a few shots of the treats table, decorated with some Spongebob accessories I found at Party City.

I did create some of my own however. This is the part I really get excited about!!

Personalized chocolate bars - I love these!! I do them for all of the birthdays.

I designed coordiating persoanlized water bottles as well with all of Spongebob's friends. You can't see them all from the picture but they wrap around the bottle. My daughter did inform me though that I left out two of them. Here I was thinking I did so well!!

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Spongebob of course! Gotta have at least one healthy item at a party.

Then of course the cake!! What's a Spongebob party without a Spongebob cake??

Since time was running out, this Spongebob ended up not having any legs. No matter though - they would have been eaten up anyway.

This is all that matters - she seemed to like it!

We set up the dining area to be a picnic at the beach - even had the infamous Spongebob flowers in the background.

There was no way I was going to have table room and chairs for 16 (yes you heard me right - SIXTEEN!!) kids!! We layed down blue mats and when they were ready to eat their pizza, covered it with...you guessed it... a Spongebob tablecloth.

Besides a cake, my daughter wanted to have cupcakes. She's a little demanding but I guess you can be when it's your 4th birthday.

I had a bunch of toppings so the kids were able to decorate their own cupcakes. Makes for a great activity!

I designed 5 different cupcake toppers as well for each kid to choose from.

Guess my daughter thought she was entitled to all of them!

After some Spongebob games, freeze dancing, pizza and cake, the party was winding down - which only means one thing - GOODIE BAGS!!!

This took me back to my gift basket days.

All complete with personalzied Spongebob tags

The party is over! Unfortunately the cleanup isn't.

What's your favorite part of planning a party? Decorating? Food? Activities?

By the way, I am currently working on adding a new shopping cart to my website so chocolate bar wrappers will be available online soon. I'll keep you updated!!

4th Birthday Celebrations 1 & 2

As I mentioned, last Friday was my little one's 4th birthday. As I'm getting the details together for her big Spongebob themed party which will be happening this Sunday, I thought I'd share some pictures from her little celebrations.

Friday, on her actual birthday, we had a family dinner with my side of the family. On their birthday, my girls get to choose the menu for their dinner. This time she chose teryaki chicken (we recently went out for Japanese so it was probably still on the brain), potato latkes (her favorite) and broccoli (nice surprise!).

I was originally going to make her a number 4 shaped sculpted cake but since we were out all day and I still had to cook dinner, I ended up making a round cake, put a number four in the middle with icing and sprinkles,

and let my girls go to town on the decorating. I just had to make the icing in the requested colors - blue and yellow.

As you can tell - not a girlie girl. If it was my other one, everything would be pink, purple and sparkly.

Celebration #2 came on Sunday. We were going to my inlaw's for Easter so I figured since everyone would be together, that would be a good time for them to celebrate with her. When I made the cake, there was enough batter left over for a dozen cupcakes. I used red cupcake liners and this time she wanted purple icing. I also designed cupcake toppers to match. Everything was set to go until we had a little mishap.

Someone, who shall remain nameless, but is the only male in our household, forgot to put the cupcakes in the car. This, along with some other stuff that he forgot to load. Believe me, I was not a happy camper when we got all the way to Staten Island to find out my stuff was missing. The purple icing and cupcake toppers however did somehow manage to get there. There was no way I was going to disappoint my baby. The whole ride she kept talking about these cupcakes. So, when they were distracted with Eater stuff,

I scooted out to the supermarket, bought some store bought cupcakes, scraped off the icing, replaced it with the purple icing, popped on a cupcake topper, and we were good to go.

Happy Birthday...again!!

Why is it that birthDAY somehow ends up being birthWEEK? 2 more to go! Tomorrow we have her little party at school and then Sunday is the big one. I'll share more of those pictures as it comes along.

How do you celebrate birthdays? Do you make your own cake? Do you have any special traditions in your family?

My Baby

Four years ago today, I was laying in a hospital bed, happily eating ice chips.

Until this happened.

By the way, why is my picture being taken at this moment? Why isn't anyone helping me?? Can't anyone see how much pain I'm in?

V-e-r-y shortly afterwards, this happened.

My baby is four today!! I can't believe it!

Happy Birthday baby!!

Ooooo! Nice hairdo. Hmmm... It seems awfully familiar to me...

The effects of having lived in Orlando. Will it ever wear off??

We'll be having a family celebration today, but the big party is next weekend. 15 four year olds! I must be crazy. She wants a Spongebob themed party. Lots of planning going on here. I'll keep you updated as the details unfold.

Wish me luck!

Spring Break Activity - A Trip To The Bronx Zoo

Things have been so crazy and hectic around here lately. You don't know how many times I sat down to write a post and then never got around to finishing it. Between family health issues, school projects, Spring Holidays and planning my little one's upcoming birthday party, there hasn't been a minute to spare.

This week in NY the kids are off from school for Spring Break.

Translation: 24/7 kid time = 1 crazy mama!!

Monday we were busy preparing for Passover and Tuesday it rained so we ended up just staying in all day. By Wednesday, it was time to go out - even if there was a blizzard!! Fortunately the weather was decent. Since Wednesday is "donation day" at The Bronx Zoo, we decided to go there. Why not save a little if you can, right?!? Everyone seems to be on a budget these days and we are definitely no exception!

The girls love going to The Bronx Zoo and since the weather has been cold, we really haven't been there in a long time. So, they were really excited about it. I was just happy to get out and have an opportunity to take some pictures.

Our first stop once we get through the main gates is to head on over to the Children's Zoo. Even though it's donation day, you still need to pay extra for this section - $3 per ticket. It's so worth it though! It's a lot of fun, very interactive and hands on for the kids - not just walking around looking at animals. I highly recommend it if you have little ones.

Their favorite part is what they call "beaver holes".

There were lots of peacocks out yesterday - they were all over the place!

Even up there! Creepy! reminds me of halloween.

Lots of happy couples,

and happy singles too.

What a character that one was!!

Here they were looking at the baby alligator

lots of areas to climb,

and there's even a treehouse slide. I think they went down at least 100 times. I lost count after 49.

Part of our routine is to eat lunch there. We head on over to the Dancing Crane Cafe. They have really good salads and normally, I would be so looking forward to it. However, just before we left, I got hit with a major stomach ache - almost didn't make it out. I am not going to fill you in on all the details, but just so you know, I ended up with a bottle of water for lunch. That was about as much as my stomach could handle.

These 2 on the other hand always get the same thing - chicken strips, fries and a blue drink. Super healthy!!

Here's a tip for you - the chicken strips lunch is $7 and comes with 4 pieces of chicken and plenty of fries. I got one so they could share and there was still leftovers.

When I was pregnant with my little one, I had constant cravings for the "blue drink". Now, she LOVES them!!

Coincidence??

It must be really annoying to have your picture taken while you're eating lunch.

Yep - reeeeally annoying.

It's one of the few times I actually feel like I have some power of them. It doesn't happen very often. I've got to take it while I can.

After lunch we decided to explore some areas we haven't been to yet - one of them being the Reptile House. My daughter was so excited because she was learning about reptiles in school. She couldn't wait to go back to her science teacher and tell him what she saw.

This is what we saw - a whole lotta snakes!!

As far as snakes go, we really liked this one. Never saw a green design like this. Very impressive!

This one reminded me of a knit scarf my Grandma could have made. When she was alive, of course.

Now these reminded me of a nightmare I once had. The story is all convoluted but it was filled with these sleek black snakes - they were all over the place.

My daughter likes me to retell the story over and over - like a bedtime story. Not sure if she's really that interested or if she just enjoys hearing how I was tortured. I'm guessing it's the latter.

Hey bud - so glad you're in there, and we're out here.

OK - I think we've had enough snakes for one day. Let's head over to see some bears.

Still holding on strong to that blue drink.

Here's one.

Only one came out. I think the others were just hanging back in their cave. Do you blame them??

Last but not least, we saw some baboons.

"Eeeeew!! Mama - what's that hanging between his legs?"

All done! Time to go!!

What have you been doing during Spring Break? Anything fun??
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On a side note, today is April Fool's Day. Why not try making these cupcakes - great fakeout food!