A Long and Overdue Update

This update is WAY overdue.  I’ve had only one post since the New Year (bad blogger) and to say a lot has happened since Jan 1 would be an understatement.

Besides our normal work schedule and holidays, over the past six months we’ve celebrated our birthdays (mine and hubs); Anthony turned six!! (omg); I trained for and finished another Spartan race – beating my previous time;  Anthony came to my job for his first Take our Daughters & Sons to Work Day; Anthony was chosen to have his artwork displayed in a district wide art show;  Mother’s Day;  Father’s Day;  and on June 13th Anthony graduated from Kindergarten (omg again!)  We’ve been quite the busy family that it’s left me barely any time to catch my breath, let alone time to blog about it all.

But probably our biggest news of all is that we moved!!  You may have caught it at the end of my 2013 recap post (if you read the whole thing LOL) where I mentioned that we were packing up the old house and were closing on the new house.  We sold our townhouse on December 27^th and on January 6^th closed on a gorgeous 4 bedroom home a couple towns over.  We are beyond excited and are in love with our new space.  We truly lucked out finding our dream home. 

taken the day our offer was accepted (November 2013)

Moving was one of the most stressful experiences of my life and to do it in the middle of snowpocalypse 2013/14 made it all the more challenging.   We were scheduled to move out of our townhouse on the day a blizzard decided to descend upon New York.  Luckily I was able to get the movers to come a day early and they kept our things stored on the truck for the weekend until we closed on the new house.   It was a good thing we were able to do that because the day after the blizzard all of the moving company’s trucks were frozen solid because the diesel fuel in the trucks had frozen!!  You seriously couldn’t have made this stuff up.  It was just insanity.  Certainly not the time to be moving, but we had no choice.  We had to go.  The day we moved into the new house it was minus 5 degrees outside.  I felt so awful for the moving guys.  I bought a few boxes of coffee and some doughnuts and that helped make for happy workers (and a faster move).  Although I’m sure the cold certainly helped them work a little faster.

So as you can imagine, a lot of whatever free time I’ve had over the past 6 months has been spent focusing on the house and doing projects.  We were lucky that the house didn’t need any renovations, but of course there were cosmetic changes we wanted to do to make it our own.  Slowly each room is coming together and it’s starting to feel like home vs a rental vacation home.  More to come on the house as we finish off rooms (and more pics too!)

For now, I’ll leave you with some picture highlights from the last 6 months and the promise that I really will come back to blogging, even if only for short quick updates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Cowabunga Dudes!

When I asked my son a few months ago what kind of theme he wanted for his 5^th birthday party I got a a different answer depending on the day of the week it was.  Agengers….Transformers….Phineas & Ferb…..Super Mario Brothers….  Until finally he settled on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (they're baaack!)  This past Saturday we hosted 18 little ninja turtles at a local nature preserve to celebrate Anthony’s 5^th birthday.  And what a party it was!! 

The naturalist at the center showed the kids some of the rescued animals they care for; including a snake, rabbit, and a ferret.  She also had items available for them to touch and explore like a turtle shell, deer skin and a snake skin.  Then we all went outside to look at the eagles and hawks and to play some animal themed games.  By the end of the hour session everyone was more than ready for pizza and cupcakes!!

Invitations and thank you notes I created myself using GIMP software (it's free!) and printed out on cardstock via Vistaprint.  I drew inspiration from this invitation I found on pinterest.  The thank you cards I made to match the invitation and made up the saying inside based on what a ninja turtle might say ;)

 

 

I was surprised at how difficult it was to find paper goods.  Maybe because the cartoon is so new that products haven’t made it into mainstream party stores yet, but I couldn’t even find them online when I was trying to order ahead of time (me being the planner that I am).  I finally found all of the paper goods at Target less than a month before the party (phew!!)  I even found masks on clearance!  Double score!!

 

 

My son may be one of the few kids on earth that does not like cake.  S(hocking, I know)  He prefers fruit or crunchy snacks over sweets.  For his school party I sent in an array of crunchy snacks for him to share with his friends, but for his party I felt like we needed a traditional cake or cupcakes.  But since I wasn’t sure if he was going to eat any, I figured why not save some money and try my hand at making cupcakes this year.  So off to google and pinterest I went in search of a vanilla cupcake recipe.  If I was going to make them, then I was going to do it from scratch.  I settled on Magnolia’s Vanilla Cupcake recipe.  Very easy and turned out delicious!  I even added some candy bits into the batter to make it more of a ‘funfetti’.  I then decorated them to look like ninja turtles – which was surprisingly quite easy.  I tinted the icing using green gel food coloring, the candy eyes were store bought, used fruit by the foot/fruit roll ups for the eye masks and used black gel icing to draw the mouth. I used these as my inspiration (from pinterest of course).

 

For the favors I knew a long time ago that I wanted to package whatever it was that I gave out in a pizza box.  Because ninja turtles love…..what else, but PIZZA!  Our local pizza place was nice enough to give me the pizza boxes for free (yay!) and I created the label in powerpoint, printed out and glued onto the boxes.   I found inspiration for the label via pinterest but decided to recreate the design myself so that I could print in a larger size than the seller was offering. 

 

I loved the idea of giving out a single item to the kids.  In the long run it probably cost about the same or minimally more as a goody bag full of lots of little stuff but honestly, the little stuff typically gets thrown away by a lot of parents a few days after the party (I know I’m guilty of it).  Finding 20 of the same t-shirt in varying sizes proved a challenge, but I ultimately found them online at The Children’s Place.  Boys got Ninja Turtle t-shirts and the girls got green shirts with hearts.

 

 

All of the ninja turtles who attended had a fantastic time and most of all the birthday boy had the best 5^th birthday!!  The joy on his face that day made all of the preparations and time I spent planning completely worth it.

 

Happy Birthday my Big Man!

 

 

 

Fabulous Five

Friday, April 11, 2008  3:47 pm

Wow, five years.  It’s a bit incomprehensible that five whole years have gone by since that rainy Friday afternoon when I held a little peanut of a boy in my arms for the first time as we welcomed him into our lives.  Four was a much more kind age to us than three or two ever were.  Anthony went through a LOT of maturing this past year.  Not to say that the last 12 months were all puppy dogs and rainbows, but we noticed a positive difference in some of his behaviors as compared to a year before.

 Dear Anthony,

Such a bright, caring & funny kid you are!!  You amaze me more and more with every day that goes by and I am so very lucky that god chose me to be your Mommy.  You have such a kooky sense of humor and a laughter that is just infectious.  Keep telling jokes and being silly.  The world can always use a dose of silliness. 

As I look at you now, there are certain things I admire about you.  Your generosity for one.   I am always amazed at the way you share with others.  Toys, food, crayons...whatever.  At only five years old you are already putting the feelings of others before yours.  I am simply in awe of you for that.  You are constantly thinking of your friends/family and what they might like to have.  You have a kind, gentle soul that is wise beyond its years.

This coming year brings with it so much newness.  A new school.  new friends.  new experiences. I will try my hardest to show you the right path, but I am bound to make mistakes. Please forgive me for them.  I see so much of myself in you and at times I want to shield you from the world so that you don’t get hurt.  But I need to keep reminding myself that you need to go through these experiences (like I did) so that you can grow to be the best man you can be.  I’m so proud of the boy you’ve grown into in the short 5 years that I’ve know you.  

Happy 5th Birthday to the pint sized man who completes my world!!!

I love you to the moon & back,

Mommy

xoxo  



photo credit:  Dan Stockfield

Photo Credit:  Dan Stockfield

Photo Credit:  Dan Stockfield

Fantastic Four?

As I sit here on the eve of my son’s 4^th birthday I can’t help but think of this moment 4 years earlier:  laying in my hospital bed apprehensive for what the next day would bring, scared of the induction, but most of all anxious to finally meet the little man that had been kicking my belly for so long.

Can it really be 4 years already?  People always tell you how fast kids grow up, but I’m really feeling it this year.  I only have one more year before he starts kindergarten and I am already dreading it. 

So much has happened in the last 4 years – good and bad.  As much as I don’t want him to grow up fast, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t happy to leave 3 safely behind us.  It’s been an extremely challenging year and Anthony has tested my patience in ways I wasn’t expecting.  I’ve heard 4’s referred to as the “fantastic fours” so please, please let that be true. 

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Anthony, you are growing into such a funny, warm, smart and caring boy.  I don’t like that you worry, since that’s supposed to be my job (yes, you’ve told me that you worry about everything). Your job is to be carefree and enjoy the simple things in life.  You amaze me every day at just how bright you are and I am so proud of everything you’ve accomplished.  My wish for you this year is for you to be proud of yourself and come out of your shell a little bit more.  You are such a sweet boy (when you’re not driving me crazy, ha!) and you can accomplish anything when you put your mind to it.  You are my heart and soul.  I love you.

Wordless Wednesday: King for a Day

Three….Could it Be?!?

3 years.  36 months.  156 weeks.  1,095 days.  

How do I have a 3 year old already?!?  It feels like yesterday that I had this big ‘ol belly and was anxiously waiting to meet our little man.

Over the last 3 years I think my husband and I have experienced all of the basic emotions that exist (and then some): love, anticipation, fear, joy, sadness, frustration, trust, surprise, anger.....  I’d say the first 12-18 months were the easiest most uncomplicated for us.  The twos weren’t so terrible, but the past year did throw a few curve balls at us – picky eating habits, moving to a toddler bed, potty training, and the biggest one of all – the start of what I call the terrible 3’s.  I hate to tell you moms out there with younger kids, but so far 3’s are proving more terrible than the 2’s ever were.  They're a different kind of terrible - more geared around them gaining their independence and testing limits.  Yes, it’s as much fun as it sounds.  I hear 4's are fabulous so we are very much looking forward to them and getting our sweet boy back :)

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Anthony,

It has been amazing watching your transformation the past 12 months from a toddler to a preschooler.  Daddy and I continue to be impressed with how smart you are.  You know all your ABCs, colors, shapes and can count up to almost 20.  You keep us laughing with the different funny faces that you make and funny things you say.  You have such a vivid imagination and I love to watch you play and listen to the stories you tell.  We are amazed at how well you speak and the vocabulary you have built up.  You love playing sports and are getting pretty good at soccer and t-ball.  You are still in love with your Thomas trains and we can’t go anywhere without toting at least one (or two) engines along with us. 

I tell you every day that you can do whatever you set your mind to because you are such a smart and determined kid.  The sky is the limit!  Daddy and I love you very much. 

Love,
Mommy

xoxoxo

 

Our Family: April 11, 2008

Our Family: April 9, 2011

3 Months Old

3 Years Old