CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Pages

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Christmas Vacation

 Our little family will be packing up the new ride and heading north this week for a much needed vacation!

We are so excited to see some snow!  And eat good food, and see family, and just relax!  And the presents won't hurt either...  So see ya next year!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

My Christmas Soul Mate

 One of the reasons I know Bobby is my soul mate is our love of Christmas.  Both radio stations in our cars have been set to Christmas songs since the day after Thanksgiving.  We are looking forward to our drive to NY so we can listen to Christmas music for 14 hours straight.  Not too many people have that much love for Jingle Bells.  Maybe it has something to do with both of our birthdays being in December.  His is December 21 and mine is December 24. 

Speaking of my birthday, I will be accepting presents throughout the year.  Some of my favorite things are sparkly, ruffly, shiny, brown, silver, black, green, blue, purple, well pretty much most colors.  Except for yellow, it clashes with my blond hair. 

One thing I can always get Bobby to agree to is more Christmas decorations.  He's as much of a sucker as I am for them.  Even when I say that I want to put another wreath up, I don't get an eyeroll.  And I already have 4 up.  The only thing I couldn't get Bobby to agree to was putting a tree up.  As much as I really want a tree up, I know that Jack would have pulled it down at least 14 times by now.  And we are leaving for NY next week so who would water it?  I compensated my putting up more tree trimmings from the Christmas tree kiosk around town.  We go to the same guy every year and he gives me as many trimmings as I need.  He tells Bobby the same story about when he was in the military.  Maybe when we retire in our luxury RV we can drive around selling Christmas trees.

I am anxiously waiting for our Christmas cards to arrive from Shutterfly!  I think they will be here tomorrow.  I've got all my address labels printed out so we just need the cards!  This will be our first photo Christmas card and I can't wait to see what they look like.

We are beyond excited to get home for the holidays this year.  We didn't make it in time for Christmas last year since Jack was born in the beginning of December.  This will be the first time in four years that Bobby and both his brothers and their girlfriends will be together.  Between all the deployments we haven't been able to spend it as a whole family.  Bobby is super excited for this...  We also get to meet Bobby's older brothers new fiance!  The got engaged a little over a month ago.  It totally blew all of us out of the water too!  But not we get to have a beautiful wedding next Oct at Chapel Hill NC.  We also get to go skiing when we go home!  I haven't been on skis in I don't know how long.  It's like riding a bike right??  I used to teach skiing in Vermont so I should be ok.

Jack is excited to go sledding at the cabin.  He's got his snowsuit all ready!  I can't wait to get some pics of him in the snow.  He's loves Christmas just as much as we do.  He's a December baby too afterall...

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Pay It Forward

 Did you know that December 1 was Pay It Forward day?  Jack and I didn't do much that day since we were getting ready for our weekend visitors.  So I didn't get to do anything special for someone else.  But I did do something special a few days later. 

One of the girls I went to high school with, August, has an 18 month old little boy named Liam who was just diagnosed with Leukemia.  He is half way through his chemo therapy and things are looking up for them.  They are at a hospital in Rochester NY which is about 2 hours from our hometown.  Since her husband has to work in Elmira he is not able to be with them full time.  And they have another boy who is older than Liam.  Can you imagine the stress she must be going through?  She is facing some pretty big demons right now with her faith too.  This is little Liam.

Every day since finding this out, I look at Jack and wonder why.  Why does this happen to such sweet innocent babies?  Not that I understand why it happens at all.  How can a mother be put through this?  I read the updates on Liam and cry inside for August, even if they are good! 

So my pay it forward was sending money in to help this family with Liam's medical bills.  If you would like to help them out too here is how.  I know they would be forever grateful for your generosity...


Did anyone else do something for Pay It Forward day??

Monday, December 6, 2010

My baby is ONE!

 What a weekend we had!  My sweet little boy turned one!  And everyone came to celebrate, except my Dad.  He couldn't get off work, but we will see him in two weeks.  Even my sister surprised us by coming!

I can finally stop obsessing over every little One Fish Two Fish thing out there in the internet bloggy world.  It was getting bad...  But in the end, my hard work paid off and I loved everything about Jack's party! 

My first ever attempt at using fondant was a typical first attempt in my opinion.  I was picturing my cake to look exactly like the one I was modeling it after.  And well, I guess the cake had other plans.  It wasn't so much perfect, but it tasted darn good!  At least it looked like the Cat's Hat, no one was confused.  I won't show you what it was supposed to look like.  Just the wonderful job I did!


So I'm sure I've said this before, but I am not a baker.  I am a cooker.  The only cake I have ever made has been in sheet form, never layers.  So the fact that there are 6 cakes on that baby is quite impressive for me.  Pay no attention to the little nub on the top, that is not the dowel supporting the cake or anything... I gave up on a few details, like his name in blue fondant on top, the one fish cut out and letters, and the rest of the black wrinkles in the hat.  Cake making is just not as easy as it seems on tv.  Anyway, on to the rest of the stuff I didn't mess up at all...

The Candy Bar



Jack's smash cake my sister decorated

Happy Birthday To You sign in book

12 months of Jack

Seuss Poms


Goldfish favors for the kids

Wonderful food catered by the City Center where we had the party
So nice not to have to clean or cook!


One fish two fish red fish blue fish cut outs

Time for cake!

Sharing with Mommy

We had such a great time and Jack is pretty spoiled with presents now!  We are very lucky to have such wonderful friends and family that shared such a special day with us!