Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, from Superman!

Superman all ready for a fun day at school!

And here are some fun pictures of Eli, ahem, I mean Superman... at school today!

Superman and  all his buddies!

Superman and Superwoman!

I no-wanna go home!

Yesterday was a bit difficult leaving school... Had to work my "Mama Magic!"

"No, Mama! I no-wanna go home! I wanna stay at Big Boy School!"

"Mama...."

"Ok, Mama! You are pretty fun... let's go home!"

Best Buds?!

Last night we asked Eli again who his best friend was, last night, it was Daddy...

Best Buds!

Last night after learning Eli has an ear infection and sinus infection; the three of us were laying together in Nick and my bed. Nick was telling Eli that Eli is his best buddy when he asked Eli who his best buddy is? Eli replied, "Mama." Melted my heart. Some days it is Mama, some days it is Daddy.

Goodnight moon...

Goodnight stars
Goodnight air
Goodnight noises everywhere...

Sexy Self Portraits

A couple months ago, my Mother-in-law and I were talking about "some people" on FaceBook that post those silly "Sexy Self Portraits" and not just one but TONS of them. Many times the pictures are of themselves in bathrooms, intoxicated, at da club, or lord only knows where. Sometimes they are not alone and they round up their friends to do this as well. They make these facial expressions that are just simply priceless... I am so inspired by their bravery to not only take these pictures, but post them out there for their friends and family to see... I was so inspired that I thought to myself, "Why not? If 'some people' can do a sexy self portrait then you can too, Randi!" And so this is what came out of that...

...super sexy, huh?!

Happy Birthday, Nick/Daddy!

Happy Birthday to my dear husband, Nick! Today we celebrate you and the wonderful person that you are. I can't help but think about how we were only 20 years old when we first met at a house party at the U. I walked into the kitchen and saw you and I thought to myself that you were the tallest person I had ever seen! My girlfriends (Mel Jobe and Jess Dorfsman) both said, "Oh, there's Suds!" Little did I know that this "Suds" guy was the one I would one day marry and have a family with. And little did I know what a wonderful life we would share. 12-ish years later... here we are and it just keeps getting better! I love you so much and am so proud to be your wife!

Happy 32!


Nick & Eli - Two Harbors, MN - September 2011



Holy crap!

People are actually reading this blog....

Last month almost 500 people read my blog!!?? Wowzas!

I started this little blog as a way of documenting our family life, my thoughts, silly stuff, etc. Something that Eli would be able to look at when he is grown... sort of an electronic Baby Book (Since I haven't done a real baby book!).

Well, to those of you that check in on our little family blog.... Hi! And I hope you enjoy!

Jersey Girl meets Minnesota Girl...

...and part of me liked it. Probably watching too much Jersey Shore.

Daddy's Nipples...

Yes, you read the title of this posting right... Daddy's nipples. Yesterday, when Nick dropped Eli off at school, Eli decided to tell his teacher that his Daddy has nipples. Could have been worse...

Wanna know what, Mama?

Last night as I was getting dinner ready, Eli and I were chit chatting about his day at school when all of a sudden he says to me, "Wanna know what, Mama?" One of those silly little things you hear kids say, now my little guy is saying it. Anyway, Eli was telling me, "Wanna know what, Mama? I like to go swimming." Oh, the things they say...

Happy 6th Birthday, Wilbur!

Happy Birthday to my adorable Godson, Will Dorfsman, or as we like to call him... Wilbur. The sweetest, smartest, and most kindhearted person I know. I am so proud to be his Godmama!

Wilbur (center) with Eli (left) and his little brother, Finn (right) picking apples last month.

Six years ago, Wilbur's mother, Jess (my best girlfriend), was in labor. I had been keeping in touch with her husband, Jeff, throughout the day. Since the hospital wasn't far from my office at the time, I decided to drop in to check on her. When I got there and she wasn't looking or feeling good. Her normally beautiful skin was blotchy, rashy looking... she had gotten sick from the medications. Anyway, her midwife came into check her while I was there and announced it was time to push. As I grabbed my bag to leave, Jess to me I could stay. Reluctantly, I stayed. In hindsight, I am so glad I did! It was the most beautiful and amazing thing I have ever seen! Jess made childbirth look like a piece of cake! She pushed for about 15 minutes and then out came little Wilbur. We all cried and gushed over this new perfect little baby boy. Immediately after Will was born, Jess' skin was back to normal and we even joked about how her stomach went back to normal immediately (no fair!).

I am so honored to have been able to watch Will come into the world and even more honored to watch him grow into a wonderful little person!

I'm a horse and you're a peacock!

Yesterday while in the car, Eli told Nick and I that he was a horse... a BIG horse! Then he went on to tell us that Nick/Daddy is a BIG peacock and that Me/Mama is a little peacock.

Oh, the things they say!

Steve Jobs

As many of you know, Steve Jobs passed away this week. I have read some of the news articles about him and his life and reflected on how he has has impacted my life.

I remember when I was about 8-years old in the 3rd grade and we got computers at school. They were Apple computers and either were black and gold screen or black and green. Anyway, I remember playing math games, reading games and of course, Oregon Trail.

Steve Jobs in 1984 with an Apple computer.

Thinking about that experience and now every day I carry this device that measures approx. 2 1/2 inches by 4 1/2 inches and connects me to everyone I know, holds hundreds of photos of Eli, it's my phone, my radio, my email, my gps, my calculator, my address book, etc., etc., etc.

Steve Jobs in 2007 with the iPhone.

I think about when I was growing up and we listened to our music on cassette tapes and I had all my tapes in this little suitcase type thing that I could keep them all organized in. Then when I was a teen, we had our Music on CDs and would carry our walkmans and our CD books we would carry with us. Now, every album I own is on this tiny device.... all because of Steve Jobs.

Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs. You certainly made an impact in this world.

A heartwarming picture of Steve Jobs with his wife Laurene Powell Jobs.

Playing coffee shop

This is a terrible picture, but it was such a sweet moment... Eli took his easel and made it into a coffee shop drive through. He had me pull up in my "car" and make an order. he would make me a nice latte and we would do it all over again! What an imagination!

Me and the little barista!

Book Club Tuesday - Sarah's Key

Book Club Tuesday is back at it! It's not that I haven't been reading... just haven't been blogging. Trying to be better!

So, I joined a book club and our book for September was Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosay. I literally could not put it down. It was a difficult book to read in that the subject matter included children and the holocast.

Without giving away too much information, it is about a girl named Sarah who's family was arrested (because they were Jewish) in the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, July 16, 1942 in Paris, France. It is also about an American woman who has been living in France for 20 years and as she learns about the Vel' d'Hiv for an article she is writing.

The "Roundup" is something I have never heard of until I read this book. Since, I have googled for more historical information. Here is some historical information:

The roundup, which was part of a continent-wide plan to intern and exterminate Europe's Jewish population, was a joint operation between the Germans and French administrators (see below for clarification).



Until the German occupation of France in 1940, no roundup would have been possible because no census listing religions had been held in France since 1874. A German ordinance on 21 September 1940, however, forced Jewish people of the occupied zone to register at a police station or sub-prefectures (sous-préfectures).
Theodor Dannecker, the SS captain who commanded the German police in France, said: "This filing system subdivided it into files alphabetically classed, Jews with French nationality and foreign Jews having files of different colours, and the files were also classed, according to profession, nationality and street." These files were then handed to section IV J of the Gestapo, in charge of the "Jewish problem."


The Vel' d'Hiv roundup was not the first such roundup in World War II. Nearly 4,000 Jewish men were arrested on 10 May 1941 and taken to the Gare d'Austerlitz and then to camps at Pithiviers and Beaune-La-Rolande. Women and families followed in July 1942.


The roundup was aimed at Jews from Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and those whose origins couldn't be determined, all aged from 16 to 50. There were to be exceptions for women "in advanced state of pregnancy" or who were breast-feeding, but "to save time, the sorting will be made not at home but at the first assembly centre".
The Germans planned for the French police to arrest 22,000 Jews in Greater Paris. The Jews would then be taken to internment camps at Drancy, Compiègne, Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande. André Tulard "will obtain from the head of the municipal police the files of Jews to be arrested... Children of less than 15 or 16 years will be sent to the Union Générale des Israélites de France, which will place them in foundations. The sorting of children will be done in the first assembly centres."

Beginning at 4:00 a.m. on 16 July 1942, 13,152 Jews were arrested according to records of the Préfecture de police, of which 5,802 (44%) were women and 4,051 (31%) were children. An unknown number of people, warned by the French Resistance or hidden by neighbors or benefiting from a lack of zeal, deliberate or accidental, of some policemen, escaped being rounded up. Conditions for the arrested were harsh: they could take only a blanket, a sweater, a pair of shoes and two shirts with them. Most families were split up and never reunited.

After arrest, some Jews were taken by bus to an internment camp in an incomplete complex of apartments and apartment towers in the northern suburb of Drancy. Others were taken to the Vélodrome d'hiver in the 15th arrondissement, which had already been used as a prison in a roundup in the summer of 1941.




The Germans demanded the keys of the Vel' d'Hiv from its owner, Jacques Goddet, who had taken over from his father Victor and from Henri Desgrange. The circumstances in which Goddet surrendered the keys remain a mystery and the episode is given only a few lines in his autobiography.


They had no lavatories: of the 10 available, five were sealed because their windows offered a way out and the others were blocked. The arrested Jews were kept there with only water and food brought by Quakers, the Red Cross and a few doctors and nurses allowed to enter. There was only one water tap. Those who tried to escape were shot on the spot. Some took their own lives.
After five days, the prisoners were taken to the internment camps of Drancy, Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers, and later to extermination camps.
The internment camp at Drancy – which is now the subsidised housing that it was intended to be – was easily defended because it was built of tower blocks in the shape of a horseshoe. It was guarded by French gendarmes. It was ordered the internees to starve, who banned them from moving about within the camp, to smoke, to play cards etc."
The roundup accounted for more than a quarter of the 42,000 Jews sent from France to Auschwitz in 1942, of whom only 811 returned to France at the end of the war.
The primary significance of the roundup was the killing of innocent people because of their religion. But there is a political and social significance because the Vel' d'Hiv has remained a symbol of national guilt and of national outrage.
The wartime history of France differed from that of other occupied nations in that the country was socially and politically divided, until it was all finally occupied by the Germans after being divided into an occupied and non-occupied zone.
There were heroes of the Occupation and there were those who faced death through dishonour. In between were the millions who got on with their lives without the benefit of knowing how the war would turn out. It is they, examining their consciences and wondering whether they could have done more.

Referenece: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vel'_d'Hiv_Roundup

Tatina de Rosnay wrote Sarah's key in such a way that you experience the emotions and feelings that these innocent people felt as they were arrested by the French police and the days that followed.

Big Truck Day - Woodbury

We went to Big Truck Day in Woodbury, where Nick's mom and step-dad live. There were buses, Army trucks, Firetrucks, Diggers, Police cars, etc., etc. The boy was in heaven! We were only there for a couple hours, but all of the excitement wore the little guy out!

Oh, and yes... Eli dressed himself today. :) (Superman costume with his Goldie Gopher hat!)