If you do nothing else, Please READ THIS.

I'm sending all of you a gift...
Don't run out and check your front doors or mailboxes. I haven't sent you a package. The gift I have to share with you is right here. No eye rolling either. You know who you are. This doesn't require you to attend church or forward a silly email to everyone you know within 3 minutes. All I ask, is that you make the time to ready this post and take the 2 quizes at the end. The post is about good health & vitality. Something we all need in order to enjoy a very long life. I promise that if you take the time to read this and complete the test at the end, you WILL get something out of it. It's what you do with the feedback from your tests that will make a difference. Those of you who know me know that I don't foward these types of things but this really opened my eyes to the need to make changes in my daily lifestyle & nutrition. I know that each of you reading this has someone in your life that you can't live without. Friends, a spouse, children, relatives. If for no one else, do this for them. I was VERY suprised by my test results and the results of my triathlete husband. Granted, it's a snapshot, but hopefully will encourage those of you who aren't fully aware of your health to seek to learn more. I scored "69 or below" on the "Staying Young" quiz. A real shocker! And my "Real Age" was 32. After you take the test, that will make more sense. You can bet I am already thinking about the things I need to do to live the longest, fullest life with the loves of my life, my husband and our amazing daughter along with all of my beautiful family & friends. If your reading this, I hope you'll share it with those you love. Happy Reading, Lori

Dr. Mehmet C. Oz, MDDr. Oz is vice-chair and professor of surgery at Columbia University. He directs the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. His research interests include heart replacement surgery, minimally invasive cardiac surgery, complementary medicine and healthcare policy. He has authored over 400 original publications, book chapters and medical books and has received several patents. He performs over 300 heart operations annually.Dr. Oz was born June 11, 1960, in Cleveland, Ohio, and received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University (1982) and obtained a joint MD and MBA (1986) from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Wharton Business School. He was awarded the Captain's Athletic Award for leadership in college and was class president followed by president of the student body during medical school. He lives in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, with his wife of 20 years, Lisa, and their four children, Daphne, Arabella, Zoe and Oliver.Dr. Oz is the health expert on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He is chief medical consultant to Discovery Communications and has hosted several shows, including Second Opinion with Dr. Oz and Life Line. His Transplant! series on Discovery Health Channel won both a FREDDIE and a Silver TELLY award in September 2006. In addition to numerous appearances on network morning and evening news programs, he has guest hosted The Charlie Rose Show. He also served as medical director of Denzel Washington's John Q.Dr. Oz authored three New York Times best-sellers, including You: The Owner's Manual, You: The Smart Patient and You: On a Diet, as well as the award-winning Healing from the Heart. He has a regular column in Esquire and Reader's Digest magazines.In addition to belonging to every major professional society for heart surgeons, Dr. Oz was elected as a Global Leader of Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, won the prestigious American Association for Thoracic Surgery Gross Research Scholarship and has received an honorary doctorate from Istanbul University. He was voted "The Best and Brightest" by Esquire and was elected one of the "Doctors of the Year" by Hippocrates magazine and "Healers of the Millennium" by Healthy Living. He is annually elected as one of the best physicians in the United States by the Castle Connolly Guide, as well as other major ranking groups. In 2006, he was honored as one of "The Harvard 100 Most influential Alumni" in 02138 magazine.

Dr. Oz has something to say that could change your life. "If you are in reasonable health, there is absolutely no reason why you don't have a fighting chance to get to age 100."Despite what you might have been led to believe, Dr. Oz says that living to 100 isn't about avoiding diseases like cancer, heart disease or stroke. He says if we could rid the world of those common killers, it would add less than a decade to life expectancy. "Aging's not about avoiding disease," he says. "It's about living with vitality."In their book YOU: Staying Young, Dr. Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen get to the bottom of the true nature of aging. Some people think living to old age is a forgone conclusion that it's all in your genes. In truth, Dr. Oz says, 70 percent of how you age comes from how you live. "We spent a ton of time looking into where the true fountain of youth is and you know where it is? It's right inside of you. It's in your cells, it's in your 'kitchens.'"How well are you aging?

1. Take the YOU: Staying Young Aging Quiz to find out.

2. Take the RealAge Test (if there is no text when you open this test, click "submit" and it should come up) or go directly to the website at http://www.realage.com/reg/regvar/st1.aspx?mod=LONGFORM

"Toe Fur"?

When Andy & I first learned that we were having a baby, we did a lot of reading, asked a lot of questions and learned all we could about what to expect during the first year. There was feeding, bathing, crying, sleeping, development...if you have children you know the list is LONG. We left no book unturned. However...at no point were we allerted to the possibility of "TOE FUR". For sure, I would have remembered this! As I do every morning, I went into Elle's room to pick her up. I changed her diaper and put her into her outfit for the day. What I found when I removed her socks baffled me! Head cocked, I looked in confusion at what I saw. How does a little baby build up such an excessive amount of lint between her piglets??? I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was never ending and wove between each one of her toes. I am fully convinced my daughter could "grow" a pair of socks in a few days. When we asked Elle how this happened, she declined to comment :-)

A Love Story

I hope you have tissues on hand-

In 1969, two friends, John Rendall and Ace Berg, purchased a lion. At the time, Christian the lion was a 35-pound cub. He had been born in a zoo. The friends raised Christian in their London home. All three hung out in a friend's furniture shop on the weekends. Within a year, Christian had grown to 185 lbs. Rendall and Berg realized they couldn't keep him much longer. But they didn't know what to do with him. A chance encounter changed that. Two actors from the film Born Free walked into the furniture store. The actors recommended a conservationist, George Adamson, living in Kenya. Christian was soon in Africa. There he was rehabilitated and released into the wild. In 1974, Rendall and Berg decided to visit Christian one last time. He was now a wild animal. Adamson told them it was doubtful that Christian could be found. No one had seen him in nine months. The two flew to Kenya, anyway. On the day they landed, Christian appeared outside Adamson's camp. Somehow, he knew. He waited outside the camp until Rendall and Berg arrived. This video was taken during their reunion with Christian. What a story! What a video! And what a reunion between friends that had not seen each other for 5 long years!

Post Baby Body

Up until last year I was pretty happy with my body. Sure, a few hours in the gym wouldn't have hurt, but all in all, I was in pretty good shape. I had the luxury of wearing whatever I wanted from my closet on any given day or night. Add in 1 baby, 2 1/2 months of bed rest and a few minor food cravings and voile....you have "post baby body" and an additional 30 lbs. A couple of weeks ago I started to work towards getting my pre-baby body back. I live with a Tri-athlete so there was no pressure, of course :-) I set my priorities...new gym clothes ! You have to have the right tools don't you? I went to the gym, took the tour and got started. The first 2 weeks were about working out a schedule and trying new classes. A balance of spinning, weights, yoga & pilates seemed like it would not only burn those pounds off, but also allow for a bit of "me" time. Needless to say, after 2 weeks I haven't lost 1 pound according to the scale in our bathroom. I've come to hate that scale and am convinced that it's broken. In an effort to ramp up the weight loss, I thought I'd challenge my highly competitive husband to a few games of Racquetball during the week. Last night was our first game. There was no way I was going to let him win. After an hour of play, I was done and defeated. What made me think that I could physically keep up with the "Ironman"? Well, it seems that I didn't have to and according to the rules of Racquetball... I WON !! Yes, it's true. Cheap, but true...

Rules:
During play, a player loses the rally if any one of the following occurs:[6]

The ball bounces on the floor more than once before being struck.
The ball does not reach the front wall on the fly.
The ball flies into the spectator's gallery or wall opening or strikes an out-of-bounds surface above the court's normal playing area [cf. Rule 2.1(a)].[7]
A slow ball with neither the velocity nor direction needed to strike the front wall strikes another player.
A ball struck by a player hits that player or that player's partner.
A penalized hindrance [cf. Rule 3.15].[8]
Switching racquet hands during a rally.
Not using a racquet wrist-safety cord. Touching the ball with either the body or uniform.
Carrying or slinging the ball with the racquet.

Andy, looks like that missing wrist strap did serve a purpose. I'll consider it a "technical win".

5 months new ! Look how you've grown.

Bath Time !

Bath Time is one of Elle's favorite things. She loves her new bath tub. (thank you daddy) And no bath is complete without her lady bug bath mit from Aunt Carolyn :-)

The origin of "Elldini"

"We're having a girl" !! I was so excited. A little girl...what will we name her? So the quest began to find the perfect name. We started by making a list of all the possibilities. Over the next few months we began to shorten the list. We were finally getting closer. She would be "Lily" or "Lauren". In the mean time we simply called her "L". As she grew, so did "L" and we decided to simply name our new little girl ...Elle.

Shortly after bringing our new little bundle home we found out that she had a hidden talent. Escape artist !! "Didn't you wrap her up?" I'd ask Andy after finding her completely out of her swaddling blanket. Little did we know that our sweet little girl had an alter ego..."Elldini". There was no swaddling blanket that could contain her. Velcro or not, she was getting out.

Meet Elle

For those of you who haven't yet met Elle, here is a recap of the past 5 months. Elle Francesca Hariton was born on February 16, 2008 at 3:15 a.m. An unexpected suprise seeing as she wasn't due for 6 weeks. She was born at only 4 lbs . In 10 days, Elle had gained enough weight to be released to come home with her Mommie & Daddy.

Andy & I were just like all parents when it came to taking care of Elle. We became really good at trial and error. Luckily, the trial only had to happen once in most cases. It only took once of having Elle pee all over the changing table for us to remember to put a clean diaper down first. O.K., so it took more than once for one of us but we won't name any names :-) Our days were filled with ooing and aahing over Elle and all the cute things she would do like sleep, sleep and sleep. It seems as though Elle was the only one getting any sleep. Andy and I set all sorts of alarms to remind us of her feeding times. The stove, the cell phones, the bedroom alarm, the stop watch...but no one knew better than Elle, that it was time to eat. "WaaaaHH! WaaaHH! Like clock work she would wake us, eat & go right back to bed for another 3 hours before seranading us again. I honestly didn't think those round-the-clock feedings would ever end. Then, one night it just happened. Silence? Oh my goodness, did she cry and I slept through it? Was she O.K.? We had put her to bed at 10 p.m. and here it was 6 a.m.? As I slowly walked into her room, I was shocked at what I found. There in the crib, peaceful, arms stretch above her head was a sound asleep baby. Elle had slept through her first night ! I thought it was to good to be true, but nope...it was official. Elle was now sleeping though the night and I could once again enjoy the same pleasure !! Having a baby certainly makes you appreciate things like daily showers and sleep :-) And great under eye concealer. Thank you Chanel!