Happy Valentine’s Day ’11

Valentine’s Day comes and goes in such a rush every year because it is now defined as the day before Annabel’s birthday.  I really love the holiday so I have to remember to make it special.  I decorate the house with pink and red and hearts and “love” signs. (It’s awesome because it gives me another great excuse to buy cute decorations at Homegoods or Hobby Lobby.)

We give the kiddies a special Valentine’s bag of treats in the morning.  The “treats” are always something other than candy because they will get so much of that from friends and teachers and grandparents.

This year we gave Daniel and Annabel some new coloring books and stickers so they spent the morning doing art projects before Daniel had to leave for school.  Annabel was super excited because we went back to Daniel’s class for a Valentine’s party at lunch time. She can not wait to start school in the fall.  At this rate, she thinks school is all about playing with friends and eating sugary things.

Yep, that’s about right.

Then, we had Grandma and Grandma over for a special Valentine’s family dinner .  They drove down from Maryland to spend three days with us.  We ate pasta cake (lasagna), broccoli, salad, and brownie sundaes.  We are all stuffed and full of love and ready for round two tomorrow.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Grammy Love

Happy Valentine’s Day!  This is one of my favorite holidays because I love hearts.  I love candy and flowers.  And I will always remember Valentine’s Day as being the day I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of my baby girl, Annabel.

So in honor of LOVE, here are the top five things I LOVED about the 2011 Grammy Awards. (Photos courtesy of AP.)

1. Katy Perry bringing her Grandma as her date on the red carpet.  How cute is this photo?  And I love Grandma’s bedazzled cane.

2.  Rihanna’s dress on the red carpet.  It was VERY daring but she can rock it.

3.  Cee Lo and Gwyneth Paltrow’s performance of “Forget You”..with Muppets!

4. Miranda Lambert’s performance of “The House that Built Me.”  I’ve loved this song ever since I heard it on country radio.  It was Miranda’s very first Grammy performance ever.  She also had her first Grammy win for the song.

5. John Mayer, Norah Jones and Keith Urban performing “Jolene.”  It reminded me again that Dolly Parton is an amazing songwriter.  Plus, you know I love me some John Mayer even if he looks a bit, um, unkempt.

Happy New Year ’11 : Part Two

After a great couple of days in North Carolina, we then drove 5 hours north to Maryland to the home where I grew up.  We had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa.   They are always amazed that their grand kids eat so well.  (Or so much.)

The highlight was Grandma’s famous homemade spaghetti and meatballs.   My mom made it for us all the time as kids growing up and it is STILL my favorite pasta dish of all time.

The kiddies had a blast playing with Grandpa in the park and reading tons of books with Grandma.

Then we were off to my sister’s house where the kiddies ran around in whatever patches of snow were left on the ground.  It’s amazing to watch children play with the most random things and these cousins had a BLAST.

We also continued our tradition of celebrating New Year’s Eve together.  The kids party in the afternoon with lots of sparkling things and sugar.  Then the adults celebrate later with lots of wine, snacks, and game playing.

That last photo was just hours before I slipped on a step going down to my sister’s basement and completely sprained my big toe.  I really thought I broke it.  The pain was so bad.  But I could walk.  Or rather LIMP around so I figured it was just a bad sprain.  It’s still hurting me a little now.  And NO, it was not a big drunken New Year’s Eve injury. YES, there was wine and a teeny bit of champagne, but the stairs really were a bit tricky and I did not want to turn on the light because the kiddies were fast asleep in the room downstairs.  See, I really will do anything, or suffer any injury, for my family.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year ’11 : Part One

Happy New Year!  Did you know today is the very last day that I can say that?  Well, according to Ryan Seacrest and his millions of Twitter followers.  Yesterday he asked “what’s the expiration date on saying “Happy New Year?”

Someone replied “halfway through January.”  Or January 15th.

So I’m going with that since today is January 15th.  Happy New Year!

The past month has been so crazy.  Some of it is still a blur and most of it is still sitting on my digital camera.  Christmas morning was so much fun.  It was great to be in our brand new home.    (This photo could have been a potential Pottery Barn ad expect for that blue TV screen there in the corner and those wires hanging from the mantle.  Maybe next year.)

The kiddies got matching Mickey Mouse Christmas “ja-mammies” (as Annabel likes to say.)  

Daniel is hugging his Bumble stuffed animal.  Annabel got the Clarice.  They are from the special “Rudolph” set at the Build-a-Bear store.  (Mama got the Rudolph because we needed the complete set. Duh.)

Here’s Daddy reading the traditional “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

Santa was very good to the kiddies.  They both got the number one item on their Christmas list.  Daniel’s was a garbage truck.

Annabel’s was a princess tea set.  Here she is serving some tea to her GG.

Then it was Christmas tree pancakes for breakfast and off to church. 

(Daniel wanted to wear his tie on the OUTSIDE of his sweater vest so everyone could see it. )

Right after church we were back in our PJs drinking orange juice (kids) and mimosas (adults) and playing with all our new stuff.  Cheers!

The very next morning we headed out on our week long road trip to visit family.   We drove to North Carolina  then up to Maryland then back to North Carolina then home to Florida.  It was a whirlwind of fun, awesome food, and weird sleeping arrangements.  It was snowing in South Carolina the entire first leg of our tour.  Daniel asked, “Why is all that dust flying around our car?”  What a Florida kid.  I realized then that he had never seen snow actually FALL to the ground.  He’s just seen it ON the ground.  When we arrived in NC, we had the chance to run around in the cold, throw snow balls and make snow angels. 

Annabel did not like the snow as much as Daniel, but she is so cute when she cries.

We had a great visit with Pop Pop and Queen which included a lot of the aforementioned eating plus lots of drinking and being merry.

Then it was off to Maryland.  Part Two recap tomorrow!

We are now heading out for some antique market shopping.  And when I say we, yes I mean all four of us.  I figure we’ll last 20 minutes.  Hopefully that will be enough time to pick up a cool mirror for our guest bath.

Merry Christmas ’10

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

 - PopMommy

Living in the Moment

I just told my husband that the past couple of weeks have been the perfect crossroads of  home, family, and LIFE stress.  We moved.  My son got a stomach virus for the very first time.  (I’m not really great with “sick.”)  Then I got sick.  My crazy dog is losing his mind in this new house and won’t sleep.  There are stairs.  There are boxes.  There are Christmas cards to send out.  More presents to buy.  Christmas cookies to bake.  Teacher gifts.  And on and on and on.

I really am living hour to hour.  This is so unlike me.  I am a planner.  I’m super organized all the time. But I just can’t catch up.  I take it one box at a time.  I take it one school obligation at a time.  I’ve been to the store almost every single day to buy something I forgot when I went yesterday.  I haven’t even had time to make a proper list!

When I was sick I abandoned coffee and wine for the entire week and I swear that sent me a little out of whack too.

I also just colored my hair back to its original dark blond.  (Isn’t there a rule NOT to mess with your hair when you are in the middle of life change and are all stressed out?  Yes?  Well, I really just wanted the 2 hours of alone time at the salon.)

One thing I have realized is that living hour to hour is basically LIVING IN THE MOMENT which is actually a good thing for me.  It’s something that I needed to work on and I’m working on it without even thinking about it.

Last weekend our new neighborhood had a holiday party in the clubhouse followed by trolley rides to look at all the lights.  It was Saturday evening and there was SO much to do around the house but we just had to forget it all and go.  I mean, it’s Christmas time!  The kids were so excited.  We had hot chocolate and cookies.  They sat with Santa.  They made a craft.  We rode the trolley and looked at all the awesome decorations.  We sang Christmas carols in unison.  We met our new neighbors.  The kids met new friends.

We lived in the moment.

It was awesome.

Crazy Times and Giving Thanks

I have not had a moment to post some photos from our Thanksgiving celebration, because here is a quick list of what has been going on in my life since I last posted something on this here blog:

  – I got sick and was surviving on Dayquil, Nyquil, and lots of bad food.

 - We moved out of our rental home into a brand new home that we bought – Yay!  It was an amazing deal (a foreclosure that needed a little love) and we have been renovating the place for over a month.  It was done Friday night and we moved in Saturday morning.  It was a LONG day.

- Once we moved in, Bean got sick with a stomach virus.  Poor guy is still recovering, but on the upswing.

 - I am now basically in a state of physical and emotional disarray.  There are boxes all over the place.  Downstairs AND upstairs.  We have STAIRS now.  I was seriously nervous about them with the kiddies, but it has been going very well.  Annabel still goes down on her bum, but she stopped asking me to carry her, so that’s a huge win.  My emotional disarray is from being overwhelmed with the entire process.  Christmas is one of my favorite holidays and we still need to decorate, get a tree, send out the cards, etc.  I’m taking it one  HOUR at a time.

And so I wanted to post some Thanksgiving photos.  For two reasons: One, because they feature the final photos of our last home, and two, because I need to give thanks for these awesome people in my life.  THEY are the ones who ground me through all of life’s crazy transitions. 

PS – I also must give a really big thanks to my hubbie for setting up our cable the day we moved into our new home.  He knows I need my must-see TV shows to make me smile.  AND my internet.  Thanks, Baby!

Happy Halloween ’10

Now that the kiddies are 4 and 2, the Halloween celebrations have kicked up a notch.  We basically celebrate Halloween the entire month of October.

This year it started when I hung the “Countdown to Halloween” Witch sign on the wall and it finally ended last night when I wrestled the plastic pumpkins filled with candy from their hands. Daniel has school parties now and Annabel was invited to a Mommy & Me costume party for the first time.  I’m a little jealous of their social network, I’ll be honest.  But I get to live vicariously through them, so that’s fine.

Daniel’s Halloween celebration started at his preschool and since they are not allowed to wear costumes, everyone rocked a team jersey.  Here he is doing some pumpkin rolling and candy hunting:

His most favorite part was the eating and there was plenty of sweet stuff to go around including pumpkin donuts from Krispy Kreme.  It took every cell in my body to not eat one.  They looked so yummy.

Annabel is still going through her princess diva phase so she spent the first half of her costume party observing from a distance:

But then she decided to have fun and dove right in making crafts, playing with the sand table and eating lots of junk food.  She had a blast.

Then it was finally Halloween night and my Tinkerbell and Cowboy were ready to go:

They trick or treated for an HOUR.  That was a new record.   The weather was perfect.   We shared some candy before bedtime and now I’m in the process of packing up all the decorations and moving on to the next holiday. (But I did get some AMAZING deals this morning when Annabel and I went Halloween clearance shopping! Woo Hoo!)

Hope your Halloween was awesome too.

Pumpkin Patch ’10

Today was our annual trip to the pumpkin patch! 

I dressed the kiddies up in their festive long sleeve fall shirts and it was so HOT that I actually felt a little bad.

But we were only there for about 30 minutes before I quickly ushered them back into the car for some water and air conditioning.

Ah…Florida in the fall.

But, seriously now, the pumpkin patch is one of my all time favorite family activities because we have been going to the same place for four years. 

Daniel and Annabel had a blast running around the orange rows and picking out pumpkins.  They understand that their pumpkins will soon be turned into Halloween night Jack-0-lanterns.  They love picking out the super small pumpkins and gourds that decorate our table at home.  They love the play tractor.

It’s the first step to get us officially ready for Halloween and the holiday season.

Even if it was 85 degrees outside.

PS – Annabel’s super cute Halloween hair bow and pumpkin socks came from the Target $1 bin.  I heart Tarjay!

9 years

Happy Anniversary, Baby.  

I’m so very lucky to not only be married to my very best friend, but also the man of my dreams.

I lovey you.

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