Momtastic Adventures

Vote for my girls! Costume Contest

2011-10-24T12:53:00.002-04:00

Virginia State Fair

2011-10-20T08:38:00.001-04:00

Both girls had a class field trip to the state fair a few weeks ago. This is the first time I've ever been. It's held in Richmond. 2nd grade through 6th grade went on the field trip. A good time was had by all. There were alot of 4H animals and farming exhibits for them to experience. I think the kids got the biggest kick out of seeing the huge pumpkins and watermelons that they had on display. The cute little bunnies and chicks of course helped out alot! They had a great horse show right before we left that the girls really enjoyed. They put on a great presentation dedicated to the service members. We also saw the horse that is the grandson of Secretariat (you know..from the movie). Here are some pictures from our trip....enjoy:

Disney Princess on Ice 2011

2011-10-03T11:00:00.000-04:00

We had a blast at the 2011 Disney on Ice: Dare to Dream last week. Have to thank my wonderful husband who won us the tickets off the radio station...oh yeah, and thanks Eagle 97 for the tickets :). We had fantastic seats, so I was able to get some great pictures! The 3 princesses they featured were Princess and the Frog, Cinderella and Rapunzel. Here are a few of the highlights:

Drop Box

The girls had a great time, even Hannah who is really not into Princesses. If they happen to be in your area, it's worth the $ to go see them, or win tickets :).

Gas Prices

2011-08-05T08:46:00.000-04:00

We just spent a week in Northern Virginia - Broadway/Timberville/Harrisonburg, VA for Tom's family reunion. We had a fantastic time!

I was so amazed at the difference in gas prices there vs. here. Gas prices here in Hampton Roads are around $3.69 and that is if you ride around and try and find that price. Gas prices around Tom's Uncle's house was $3.39! Yowsa! We were so amazed, we had to take a picture of it! An even better reason to move!

CHIP Chesapeake's Amazing Race 2011!

2011-06-16T08:51:00.001-04:00

I had the priviledge of running the Children's Health Investment Program (CHIP)'s 2nd Annual Chesapeake's Amazing Race with some amazing women on Saturday, May 21, 2011. We had a blast. We are The First Wives Club and we consist of myself, Charlene Till, Carol Rood and Karol Sabastian. We all ran the race last year as A.R.M. (Amazin Racin Mom's), and came in about 9th out of about 24 teams. We decided to change our name this year to help boost our chances of winning :).

We started the day at Chesapeake Town Center at 9am with registration. They then had all team leaders (me) stand in a hoola hoop and each team member went to stations. The stations consisted of diapers, bibs and bonnet/binkies. We had to stand with our hands behind our backs and couldn't help our team mates put the items on us, so we stood there while they put the items on us, then we had to race to grab a baby bottle bank and run around the fountain and grad a marked bag and begin the Amazing Race. Our first official stop was Greenbrier Florist, so that's where we headed. If you are friend of mine on Facebook, I've posted the video of the whole baby-dressing and you can laugh just like we did during the whole thing. We were actually the first team done with our baby-dressing and the first team to our mandatory first stop.

I won't go step by step of how our day went, but a few of the things we did were: carried a strangers groceries, sang "The Loving Feeling" to a store clerk, bought a teacher an apple, hugged a service member, did a conga line through a grocery store, wore orange jump suits in front of the Sherrif's office, stopped-dropped-and-rolled in front of a fire department, took a picture with a mascot, searched for golden ducks, delivered flowers, visited a park and had fun on swings, searched for several misc items such as houses with christmas lights, cars waiting for trains, house numbers, red-headed children, elderly people, etc. Let's just say it was a BLAST and we will certainly be back next year! The race finished at 3pm at Abuelo's in Greenbrier. Along the way, you had to collect $ for CHIP and ask strangers for money. This was very hard for us to do, but we persevered and got the job done. Heck, Carol carried a stranger's groceries for him and he gave her a $20 tip..woohoo! (maybe we should just do that all day next year :)

If you've skipped to the collage below, then you know how the day ended. The exit process was very long and drawn out, but worth it. Our team actually came in FIRST! We were complete shocked-speechless- beyond words - if you know any member of our group - that's very hard to do!

The trophy presentation took place at a Chesapeake City Council Meeting, last night, 6/14. You can watch the video here. If you look below the video and in the drop-down menu, click on presentations and then go to time: 1:56:10, you will see Trish (head of CHIP of Chesapeake) starting the presentation of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners. 3rd Place were the Health Nuts and 2nd Place were the Politicos. Sadly, Carol and Karol could not be at the trophy presentation because their children came first and had other obligations. I know, what are ya gonna do? We didn't get to choose the night, blame the Mayor for that one!

Unfortunately we only have 1 trophy for all 4 of us to share. But we will share it indeed. I took it first, so I'll have it for the first quarter (3 months) and since the rest of them live in the same neighborhood in Suffolk, they can duke it out who will get it next and then next and then next :)! We'll rotate and then all we need to do now is win 3 more times in the next 3 years and we will all have a trophy and won't have to share them! Yeah, that's the ticket!

Amazing Race 2011 raised over $13,000 for the children of Chesapeake -what a WONDEFUL cause!

Mother's Birth Day

2011-05-12T07:33:00.000-04:00

Saturday, May 7th was my birthday...how old am I do you ask? Old enough, I say!

I celebrated with my wonderful family and friends and with a Coldstone Peanut Butter Perfection Icecream cake....talk about to.die.for!

Sunday, May 8th was Mother's Day. We had lunch with my Mom and sister at Olive Garden and then had Tom's family over for dinner Sunday night. This is a great pic that I took of the girls on my cell phone that is now my screen saver. One of those rare lovey-dovey moments.

Friday at Girl Scouts, we had a Daisy Mom's Tea Party. This is Samantha in her cowgirl hat and pinky sticking out enjoying her tea.

How was your Mother's Day?

Wednesday Rambles

2011-05-04T10:56:00.000-04:00

Homecoming

This was my homecoming when I came home from Boston a few weeks ago. Tom and the girls had decorated the dining room with a balloon, flowers and some sparkles on the table. Not only that, but after a week of being gone, the house was clean, dishes done and laundry folded. I couldn't ask for anything better than that!

Tom's Retirement

2011-05-03T20:36:00.000-04:00

Took up our whole chair

Tom has been retired with the Chesapeake Police Department "officially" since 2/26/10. He got hurt on the job 11/07 and back surgery on 12/9/08 which ended up not working. So his official diagnosis is failed back surgery. Right now he can't work, because he can't stand, sit, walk, whatever for any length of time. So right now, he's just doing therapy twice a week and just in pain the rest of the time (sometimes a pain..but that's another post...lol).

We had a retirement party for him back in August. The City just had their retirement service on Thursday. 10 retiree's were being honored, but only 4 of them showed up. From L-R is Tom, Officer Hood, Captain Spruill and Officer Jeeter. Tom had a total of 17 years with the City of Chesapeake, 12 of them with the Police Dept.

They each received a HUGE plaque...now when I say huge, I mean huge!

I know this picture is blurry, but it shows you just how big it is

Here is the cake they served with all the retiree's names

Side of the plaque with Tom's start date with the Police Dept and retirement date

Introducing Tom

Here is a video of Lt. Farney reading Tom's bio before they introduced him and he went forward to get his plaque.


This is Tom and a great friend of the family Chaplain Russell Holland

Spring Break Camping

2011-04-29T12:16:00.000-04:00

We had such a BLAST during our Spring Break/Camping week. We camped with friends of ours, the Sindelar's and the Gates'. We camped at Bethpage Camp Resort in Urbanna, VA. The weather was beautiful, only 1 day of rain, we couldn't have asked for a more perfect week!

Here are some pics from our trip:

Good Clean Fun:

Easter Fun:

We definitely look forward to going back next week and really didn't want to leave. You know the old addage...you need a vacation from your vacation...that's exactly how I felt when we came back!

Break and Birthday!

2011-04-29T10:17:00.013-04:00

Seems like I've been gone from here for forever!

I was in Boston, MA for a conference the week of April 11th and got back on Friday, April 15th. My baby turned 7 on April 16th!

Here she is blowing out her birthday candles at her party! I can't believe I didn't get a picture of her that morning by herself..but it was a rush. See...were supposed to leave that afternoon for a week of camping for Spring break.

Here she is around her first Birthday! Isn't she adorable!
Here are some pictures of her party:

Is it just my children who are obsessed with punch bugs (voltswagon bugs)?

So since the big storm was coming our way, we didn't want to really be in a camper when it hit, so we decided to ride out the storm at home and head for camping on Sunday morning instead. So that at least gave me a little bit more time for packing, cleaning, etc. that had to be done.

Gloucester, VA got hit the hardest in our area. We actually drove past the school, Page Middle School, that got damaged in the storm. Luckily there was noone in the school and noone hurt in the area because of the storms, but the devastation is just that...devastating! They were still doing cleanup on the way back a week later! (the kids from the middle school were moved to other schools nearby, but they were changing the schedules for the other schools...schooling from 7:15am-12:45pm and from 1pm-6:30pm...can you even imagine!)

Spring Break/Camping pictures to come!

2011-04-13T21:44:00.008-04:00

New England Aquarium, Boston, MA

I'm in Boston this week for an AUR (Association of University Radiologists) conference with other Residency Administrators. Tonight was our welcome reception at the New England Aquarium. It boasts over 90 penguins, which were just beautiful and had no problem posing for the cameras. We saw sharks, sea horses and something I've never seen before, sea dragons. The tank was very blurry, so picture taking was non-existent..but I got a pic of their picture so you could see it...very beautiful and very unique.

Can you see the anaconda in the very back..it was HUGE...ewwww...at the bottom you can see the snake skin

Here's another picture of the anaconda skin
Here is the picture of the sea dragon

Shark tank

Doesn't this guy look like that penguin from that surfing penguin movie...lol

Food was OK, but the tanks/penguins were much better :). Overall a great time was had by all.

Camping and Boston, MA

2011-04-11T20:59:00.010-04:00

Camping

We went camping this past weekend at American Heritage in Williamsburg, VA. Friends of ours bought a camper and this was the first time they had a chance to use it. We had a blast and had the perfect weather for it. They had new bikes that you could rent that were 4 seaters. The 2 people in the back pedaled and the 2 in the front got to ride. The kids had fun! Those bikes are really a workout in disguise :)! Not easy to pedal at all.

The easy part is sitting up front in seat belts...the hard part is the back seats where you have to steer and pedal

Boston, MA

I'm in Boston for an annual conference that I attend each year. It is the first time I've been in MA. Nice 62 degree weather, I'm lovin it. It's hard to leave Tom and the girls, but I'll only be gone a week. Doesn't seem to be much around the hotel area where I'm at, but hopefully I'll get to explore in the next few days. We have a reception at the big aquarium here on Wed night, so I'm looking forward to that. Here are some pics from my hotel room, The Westin Waterfront.

View from my room

My hotel room (the unicorn on the bed is the animal Samantha had me bring in case I started to miss her and Hannah - sweet huh!)

This is what Westin calls the "heavenly shower" Oh Yeah!

New Look

2011-04-05T18:46:00.003-04:00

Notice my great new look? I. LOVE. IT!

Thanks April for my gift certificate and Thanks Erin from DesignerBlogs for making such a beautiful layout!

Hopefully this will motivate me to post more!

Indian dress

2011-04-05T08:57:00.007-04:00

Hannah has an international project that she has to complete in 4th grade. She has to choose a country and then throughout the year, she has to complete different assignments related to her country.

Her newest assignment was to research the traditional clothing worn by people in her country, write 5 sentences about it and have pictures of male and female clothing. In class, they are going to make paper dolls based on the clothing/fabric that was used. This was a very easy assignment for us, because the girls already had saris from their Uncle Khan's trip to India over Christmas. These saris are absolutely beautiful and the pictures definitely don't do them justice at all. The paper dolls will be on display during their International Day in May.

Unfortunately I had the girls try them on when it was 70 something outside and they were itching to go ride their bikes. Hannah's idea was to take pictures of her and Samantha wearing the saris and then use a picture we have of Uncle Khan, Aunt Eileen, Rishi, Rakesh and Ranjan and their prospective others in their saris and kurtas (worn by the men). So here are the pictures of the girls in their saris.

A HUGE thank you and HUGS to Uncle Khan and Aunt Eileen for the beautiful clothing!

Science Fair and Birthdays!

2011-04-01T12:54:00.011-04:00

Science Fair

The Science Fair was a big HIT!

Hannah got an A+ (100) on her Science Fair Project..woohoo! She did an amazing job!

Samantha's class also did a small science fair. They planted beans. Although hers didn't really grow, she had a great time planting and it now sits in our window at home trying to grow! They also grew beans on wet papertowels without dirt.

BIRTHDAYS!

March 16th was Tom's 39th Birthday and Hannah's 10th Birthday. Hard to imagine that my baby is already in the double digits!

So hard to imagine another year has gone by! Just yesterday she looked like this...

Great giveaway....

2011-03-30T10:56:00.002-04:00

Here's a great giveaway on my bff's homeschooling blog :) Check her out! http://homeschool-musings.blogspot.com/2011/03/top-ten-posts-and-anniversary-giveaway.html She homeschools in MS. So even though it's not in VA, she's got a ton of information that I've used for my own girls when they've had issues in different subjects. She did a wonderful Amazing Race birthday party for her 10yo son, Ben that was "to die for"! Check her out, you'll find her just as amazing as I do!

Girls Scouts and The Science Fair Project

2011-03-15T16:10:00.020-04:00

Girl Scouts/Colonial Williamsburg

We had a blast in Colonial Willamsburg on Saturday, March 12th with the Girl Scouts. It was Girl Scout Day there and the girls got to meet some interesting women from Colonial Times and learn about how they became tavern owners, tour buildings and see how people lived back then.

Here are some pictures of us on the shuttle bus that took us from the Guest Services into Colonial Williamsburg.

The girls got to see the Magazine and Guard House.

They got to experience what Colonial Punishment was like - minus the rotten fruit of course :).

Girl Scouts/Cookies

During one of our booth sales at Chick-fil-a, we had an unexpected visitor, the cow :). Samantha couldn't pass up the opportunity for a hug. He even bought a box of Thin Mints from the girls.

The Science Fair Project

Hannah's Science Fair Project was due today. She chose to make a Lemon Battery. Now for those who are unaware, you can actually power a calculator, small digital clock or a led light with a lemon battery. It was very educational and we had a great time helping her make it. Here you can see the led (red light) lighting up with the help of 4 lemon batteries.

2 lemons produced a very faint light, so you definately need 4 lemons in order to get enough power to really make a "battery".

Her Science Fair at school is Thursday night, St. Patrick's Day, so I'll let you know how she does.

Samantha's class did a Science Project as a class, they planted flowers, so we'll get to see those and take pictures on Thursday.

Update on the fast few months...

2011-02-25T14:26:00.011-05:00

Man, time sure flies when you are having fun. You blink and a few months have already gone by and then March is knocking on the door.

First it started with a huge snow storm right after Christmas. Between Christmas and New Year's, we ended up getting 14 inches of snow...very unheard of for our area...that hasn't happened since 1989. We've had 2 more snow falls since then, which is still highly unusual for our area.

Then January brought the selling of Girl Scout Cookies and we are currently still in the midst of that. You should now be seeing the girl scouts selling the cookies in front of your favorite stores. My Daisy and Junior are having a blast selling cookies this year and are still taking orders if you are interested!

February brought us to Valentine's Day! The girls and I made these tasty treats for their classes. We made pink popcorn balls and "cutie bugs" out of nutter butter cookies and pretzels. They were alot of fun to make and even more special was the look on the kids faces in their classrooms when they saw them.

February was also spent aboard the Spirit of Norfolk. We got to share a cruise with good friends of ours, Audrey and Tim. A great time was had by all, enjoying the food and fellowship.

I'll leave you with a great recipe that you will definately have to try. We recently re-discovered Zataran's Black Eyed-Peas and Rice. What makes it so special you ask? It's the "Hoppin John" recipe on the back that will get to purchase this by the case load. I say we rediscovered it because we haven't been able to find it in our local grocery stores anywhere. Believe me, we've looked! We've also tried the recipe with other versions of Zataran's rice and beans and it's just not the same. On a recent trip to the commissary, I found this and purchased 4 boxes of them.

Here's what you need:

1 box of Zataran's black eyed peas and rice

chicken broth (box will tell you how much)

onions - sliced

4 large bone-in pork chops

salt and pepper to taste

oil for frying pork chops

Start by adding some oil to the hot pan. Season your pork chops with salt and pepper on both sides. Sear them just until you get them golden on each side, they will cook later in the rice/broth mixture. Remove them from the pan. Add chicken broth to the pan (it will tell you on the back of the box how much to add..although it says to use water...the broth will give it so much more flavor) and the box contents. Stir to combine. Add your pork chops back into the pan and add a sliced onion on top of each chop. Cover and simmer for about 30-45 minutes, depending on how thick your chops are.

This one pot meal is definately worth trying. We wrote to Zataran's when we couldn't find the exact rice/beans we were looking for and they said that we could order directly from them if our area stopped selling this particular flavor. So definately be on the lookout for it.

Hard to imagine Hannah will be turning double digits in just a few short weeks and Sami will be 7 not far behind her! Yowsa!

In the First Light

2010-12-24T22:30:00.002-05:00

In the first light of a new day

No one knew He had arrived

Things continued as they had been

While a newborn softly cried

But the heavens wrapped in wonder

Knew the meaning of His birth

In the weakness of a baby

They knew God had come to earth

As his Mother held Him closely

It was hard to understand

That her baby not yet speaking

Was the word of God to man

He would tell them of His Kingdom

But their hearts would not believe

Thy would hate Him and in anger

They would nail Him to a tree

But the sadness would be broken

As the song of life arose

And the firstborn of creation

Would ascend and take His throne

He had left it to redeem us

But before His life began

He knew He'd come back not as a baby

But as the Lord of every man

Hear the angels as they're singing

On the morning of His birth

But how much greater will their song be

When He comes again to earth!

Amen!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Santa's little helpers - Dinner style

2010-12-17T15:17:00.010-05:00

Hannah and Samantha LOVE to be in the kitchen helping. Tom made his famous roast the other night and of course, they couldn't be left out of the kitchen for the preparations. It was very delicious...we may have 2 chefs in the making!

Hannah started by scoring the roast and putting cloves of garlic in for flavor

Samantha started peeling the carrots and then Hannah came to help outOur finished product was a very yummy dinner...complete with Grammy's homemade bread

Chesapeake's Christmas Parade & Gingerbread Houses

2010-12-17T14:52:00.020-05:00

We had a fanastic time attending Chesapeake's Annual Christmas Parade. It was very chilly and it even snowed during the parade, which the girls thought was "da bomb"!

This was the front of the parade, the police bikes. Can you see the snow falling a little in the background?

Hannah was in charge of picture taking. We weren't quite sure of the "theme" of the parade, but the floats were very nice to look at.

That morning, the girls made gingerbread houses. If you have a chance to buy a kit that comes with 5 mini-houses...skip over it. Way too hard. Just buy a big one and let everyone decorate it. Here's our attempt at decorating them :)!

They didn't really come with instructions, so we just had to "wing" it when it came to what pieces went with what houses. I was in charge of putting them together and the girls were in charge of decorating them. Luckily we had help. We had Hannah's friend Olivia and my niece Becca helping us to decorate them.

Christmas Program & Field Trip

2010-12-17T14:38:00.016-05:00

On Tuesday night, the girls had their Christmas Program for School. They did a great job. The theme was "Twas the Night of Jesus' Birth". Samantha's class just sang songs and played the drums during "Little Drummer Boy" and Hannah's class played a flute-like instrument during one of the songs. Enjoy the pics!

Samantha looks so cute playing her little drum...although she does look less than thrilled.

Hannah had a fantastic time practicing for this song. She could be heard each night in her room practicing. One of the songs they did is called "Hot Cross Buns".

On Wednesday, Samantha's class had a field trip to Glazenfyre and to Chuck E Cheese. Well, they were supposed to go to Hunt Club Farms to see the animals and Santa, but considering it was 19 degrees outside, Chuck E Cheese's warmth won over the hearts of the parents attending :). They got to paint an ornament at Glazenfyre and then have pizza and some fun at Chuck E Cheese.

Santa looks adorable and will be a beautiful addition to our tree once he's fired-up.

This is one of the girls favorite "rides" at Chuck E Cheese's.This game is new to our Chuck E Cheese, but it is so cute. You touch the screen to pop the bubbles. There were actually 6 or 7 new games and even I had a great time spending Samantha's tokens :).

Thankful

2010-11-24T16:47:00.019-05:00

I am very thankful for my family!

We had a great thankgiving luncheon at Hannah and Samantha's school. We made cute little turkeys and pilgrilm hats. The kids made place mats for Thankgiving dinner and each of their classes did a little skit.

Thanksgiving dinner was had at my parents house in NC. We had a fantastic time and left very full.

After dinner, Tom and my dad took Hannah to try out Tom's 22 and she really enjoyed it.

Charlene and I had a fantastic time shopping on black friday. We started out Thanksgiving night around 9pm and got home around 6:30am Friday morning. We got some great deals, Santa would be proud!

This would usually be the weekend where we would get out all our Christmas decorations, but luckily my nephew came over last weekend and helped us put up our tree and then helped us put up the outside lights yesterday....so it's all done.

Hope you had a fantastic Thankgiving and black friday weekend.

Anniversary Dinner

2010-11-23T15:08:00.007-05:00

I had to work late on Friday night....our anniversary. I didn't get home until after 7pm.

The girls had everything worked out for our dinner knowing that we didn't have the $ to go out to eat. Tom wasn't allowed out of the bedroom and they had been hard at work since about 5pm. They had swept the kitchen floor, prepared menus, set up a dance floor, set up a band, set the table and had everything all prepared for a nice in-home-family-restaurant.

So when I walked into the house, they took my purse and bag and had me close my eyes and led me to the bedroom. From there, they led Tom and I into the living room and onto the couch. Then the band proceeded to entertain us.

Once the band was done playing - quite well I might add, we proceeded into the very clean dining room and were presented with our own menus. Here is a tidbit of mine:

We had our choice of drinks - notice the beer selections - too funny....they must have gone into the garage refrigerator and looked at Tom's beer choices to write these down. Precious!

Here are the sides that we got to choose from.

And lastly, our dessert selections.

I must say, our waitresses were very well mannered and got a very LARGE tip from us. They did a great job and we will certainly be frequenting this restaurant again in the very near future.

The only complaint I have is that I had to do the dishes....but considering the dinner was free....I guess I can't complain too much!

I thank God every day for my precious girls!

Think we wore them out?

16 years ago today

2010-11-19T07:02:00.011-05:00

I married my best friend!

We met through a mutual friend. Becky and I had gone to church together and she was telling me about a neighbor that she wanted me to meet. She brought him to church the next week to meet me. I had just broken up with a guy and wanted only friendship. He courted me for a while and we instantly became best friends and then developed the relationship. I remember when he proposed to me.....it was at the Virginia Beach boardwalk. He had already gotten permission from my father and everyone knew about it but me. He got on one knee and recited a poem he had written for the occasion. It was so romantic, I was brought to tears. I only had eyes for him. When he was done and I had accepted and we broke apart our kiss and applause broke out. We were oblivious to the crowd we had drawn.

We had a beautiful ceremony with about 150 people present. I borrowed my dress, he rented his tux. My sister (8 months pregnant with her son) was my maid of honor and his best friend Sam Gates was his Best Man. My attendants were Tom's sister, Kristin and Becky. Tom's groomsmen were Jim Stewart and Rolf Cuerrvou. Tom's brother, Corey was our ring bearer and Jim's daughter Lauren was our flower girl. Our family did the reception we had in the church fellowship hall. We got married at Lindale Church of Christ in Chesapeake, VA.

Today we have 2 beautiful daughters and are living our dream. Of course, we have had many bumps in the road: financial issues, surgeries and retirement; but also some joys along the way: our daughters, our home, our vacations in our camper and retirement.

Here's to 50 more years of happiness...

Happy Anniversary Baby!

Fall has arrived!

2010-11-17T09:06:00.000-05:00

It may have looked like fall this morning, but it still doesn't FEEL like it. Yesterday it was 74 degrees...how is that fall weather? Craziness! At least I woke up this morning to the beautiful site of colorful leaves scattered over my front lawn.

Welcome Fall, it's about time!

Our 2010 Christmas Cards from Shutterfly

2010-11-15T11:57:00.000-05:00

Here is our 2010 Christmas cards that I just finished from Shutterfly! How beautiful they turned out!

We had a family reunion a few months ago on the Eastern Shore with a private beach and I captured some beautiful shots of the girls on the beach and wanted them for our Christmas cards....I'm overjoyed with how well they turned out! I hope you enjoy it too!

Christ Wishes Religious Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Shutterfly Holiday Cards

2010-11-11T15:15:00.000-05:00

I have my Christmas card pics all ready to go, just need to order cards. Shutterfly does a beautiful job of capturing your pictures in various holiday cards and in beautiful print and color. I love to look back at our cards and see how our girls have grown, since we use them as the theme of each of our holiday cards. We've done silly ones to serious ones.

We are planning to order from Shutterfly again this year, because of their reputation for making beautiful cards. They have a variety of spectacular Holiday creative designs to choose from. There are even birthday themed cards so you could do birthday invitations or even regular photo cards. I've also done a few photo books that will take your breath away. I've done them for summers and for Disney vacations. What a wonderful way to remember a special time in your children's lives and have them show off where they've been.

Here's one of my favorite cards - very hard to choose just one:

Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly. Click here to find out how!

Which one is a "must have" for your family?

My baby turned 8...

2009-04-01T07:20:00.000-04:00

I just can't fathom that my baby is already 8. WOWSA...will be even worse when Sami turns 5 this month. Where has time gone...weren't they just babies? 8 days after my due date, I remember Tom and I eating dinner at Denny's (I know...) March 15, 2001 before going to the hospital. When we got there at 8pm, they gave me meds to soften my cervix. The morning of the 16th about 7am, they gave me pitocin to start the process flowing. I was only 1 cm dialated at this point and had been for weeks. Contractions started almost immediately. I had visions of laboring without drugs. Around 2pm, I got the epidural and was progressing nicely. Finally at 10cm, I started pushing. 2 1/2 hours of hard pushing, she still wasn't coming out. I have a rounded cervix, so she wasn't coming down. They made the decision to do a c-section and they just gave me a higher dose in my epidural. Off to the OR I went. Tom and Charlene were able to be in there with me and see the whole process. I kept waiting for her to cry, that way I knew she was out and all was well. I got worried when I didn't hear the crying. Tom and Char were almost on the other side of the room watching. Hannah came out not breathing, so they were doing everything possible to make her breathe. They took her into the other room and got her breathing and I could hear her little screams...talk about the longest moment in my LIFE! Tom finally brought her over to me, a perfect little angel. I got to kiss her and then they whisked her away to the nursery, along with Tom and was able to tell Tom that was his birthday present. Did I mention that Tom's birthday is March 16th too...what a gift. My baby was born at 10:41pm. The main thing I remember after they left was hearing the staff count all the items.....1 scaple, 5 gauses, etc...at the time I thought it was funny...but working in the medical profession now, I realize they were accounting for everything to make sure I didn't aquire anything "extra" before they stitched me up :)! I can certainly appreciate that! I spent almost 2 hours in recovery by myself..which is how I wanted it..I wanted Tom by Hannah's side and not let her out of his sight.

I finally got to my room and THEN was able to finally see and HOLD my baby girl. She was perfect....I checked for the obligatory 10 fingers, 10 toes, perfect in every way. Every test that they did for her, her 1st bath, etc., Daddy was right there. They would come in to take the bassinet and he'd make sure he was right there beside her walking down the hallway. I can honestly say for the first 3 days of her life, Daddy didn't let her go anywhere without him. Several naps were taken on the pull out bed with Hannah on his chest. Very very sweet.

On our way home from the hospital, we stopped at Walmart to shop. My c-section was so easy and compared to most, a breeze!

Fast forward to March 15, 2009 - Hannah and Tom's party. But does he really get to celebrate his birthday much...nope, but he did get a candle on a cupcake! :)! She had a great party and a great birthday the next day.

Happy 8th Birthday Hannah and Happy 36th Birthday Tom!

Pictures: In order from top to bottom:

1) Hannah's first Mother's Day, May 2001

2) Us singing Happy Birthday to Hannah on her 8th Birthday (baseball themed of course)

3) Kids playing twister at Hannah's party

4) Party room

What will you celebrate?

2009-03-25T08:58:00.001-04:00

You know you are a Disney fan when you blog about an awsome Disney Celebrations box you got in the mail before you blog about your husband/daughter's birthday party and your front door/storm door that you finally replaced after 11 years of being in the house!

Ok, onto my box. I entered an essay contest that the Mickey Mom's Club had a few weeks ago and WON....well 1,000 of us did..so I'm not that special. They were mailing us a party package so that we can host our very own in home Disney Celebration. Let me just tell you how wonderful the items in the box are.....the girls were just as excited as I was to open the box and peek at the contents! It came in a beautiful red box..unfortunately, it looked like fed-ex had dropped the box a few times, so the end was smashed which in turn smashed the beautiful colored fortune cookies in the box...but we had fun eating the remnents :)! There were 11 "goody bags" that are canvas bags that say "Celebrate Today" and inside are a mickey ear straw, magnets and a sheet for the magnets to stick too. Very awsome. Also there are 11 things to go inside the goody bags...that includes a mickey hat (like Burger King Birthday hats), coloring book and crayons. There are Disney napkins, beautiful lithographs for the Mom's of the birthday kids, fortune cookies (what's left of them..hee), balloons you can blow up for the party, a bingo game, trivia cards and a wish maker kit. There were also Hannah Montana magnets for all the kids, a WDW DVD vacation planner and a beautiful photo album for the hostess - ME! ALL in all, it was a wonderful surprise.

Samantha's birthday is April 16th, but we'll be camping that week for Spring Break, so we are doing her party on the 11th, day before Easter and doing a big Easter egg hunt in the backyard (pray for good weather for us...when I post about Hannah's party, you'll understand). So she'll have an Easter Disney theme for her party...she's very excited and was listing all 19 kids in her class. Explaining to her that she cannot invite all of them was a bit difficult, but hopefully we'll work it out!

For the rest of the 999 Disney souls that recieved the box, hopefully you are just as excited as I am :o)!

Updates....

2009-02-25T15:08:00.000-05:00

I wanted to update on the mouse situation...happily reported hopefully we don't have a situation anymore involvoing mice :o)!

We caught 2 live mice (or since Tom let the 1st one go..he may have come back for more). Since the neighbor nor I liked the idea of touching a live mouse, we got new traps.

So we got the traps that "kill" the mice. Believe me, while I wanted to get rid of them in a humane way..I'm sure the neighborhood did not like a grown man (neighbor) and a grown woman (me) screeching everytime we saw claws come out of the live traps :)! Eventually we tossed the scared mouse into the garbage can and hopefully he was picked up by the trash man the next day because we haven't seen him around lately. We have seen NO mice in our traps, nor have I had to clean up their "left behinds". So I'm thinking positive and the mouse problem is GONE!

As for the $50....of course I didn't win..I never do :o)! I hope Darcie wins though :)!

Time flies.....

2009-02-25T14:46:00.001-05:00

Man, time sure does fly by. You blink one minute and your kids are babies and the next thing you know they are graduating from college. Ok, so we aren't on the college front yet..but it certainly is in the distant future. We are smack dab in the middle of grandchildren birthday's. My parents only have 4 of them...2 from me and 2 from my sister. Her son was 14 January 14th and her daughter just turned 7 on February 23rd. Hannah will be 8 on March 16th and Samantha will be 5 on April 16th. Then after that, they are sporadic.

I had to take a picture of me with Samantha for her dance recital on May 30th. Their theme is "My Mama had a Dancing Heart", so they wanted to do a slide show in the beginning with the girls and their mom's, grandma's, etc. Being the ever conscious parents, I couldn't just take a pic of me and Samantha...I had to interject Hannah in there, so we did a pic of all 3 of us that I submitted (I also have one of my Mom with Sami to submit). Seeing that pic reminded me of a favorite pic of me and the girls that was taken a long time ago. Now realize, I'm the one behind the camera....so very rarely do I get to actually be in the pic. Here's the pic from about 3 years ago when Hannah was in preschool and they had a Vday dinner.

Now fast forward to now....my girls are growing up so fast, it's scary.

It brings tears to my eyes to know that they are growing up and unfortunately there's not a darn thing I can do about it!

$50

2009-02-18T08:48:00.000-05:00

Darcie (Disney World Mom's Panalist) is giving away $50 for voting for her blog.

Check it out!

M-O-U-S-E

2009-02-12T11:03:00.000-05:00

Nope, I don't mean Mickey and unfortunately I don't mean Disney World-I mean the real rodents. We have mice in our garage - and YES! I'm making myself believe they are ONLY in the garage. I've seen no evidence of them being in the house. I spent most of Sunday afternoon cleaning out the garage so that we could even see what was going on in there. Now, it's all clean, no more mouse poo as far as I can see and we put down these traps. You put bait in them and set them up, the rodent crawls inside, eats poison and the trap closes. Now, you would think, once he/she ingests the poison, they would die. 2nd night with the traps out, I excidedly told Tom we caught on, the trap door was closed. So I proceed to pick it up with a bag (Tom still can't bend from surgery) and hand it to him and proceed into the house. He takes it out front to dump into the garbage can and realizes the thing is ALIVE! Since he has such a good heart, he takes it across the street and dumps it in the neighbors ditch (Sorry Tony and Ellen...lol). Now, what's to stop the thing from coming back and bringing friends is my question to him. Tom says that when he gets water in his system, he'll die. (whateva!)

So this morning, the same trap is closed again, so looks like we've caught another one. I told Tom that if he wasn't prepared to kill it if it was not dead or tag it so we can see if he comes back (lol), then he should leave it alone and I'll find a willing man in the neighborhood to dispose of it tonight - ewwww.

Our preacher is coming to take Tom to lunch today...what are the chances he's not squemish about killing a mouse? hmmmmmm. Stay tuned...

Keeping Busy

2009-02-04T16:12:00.000-05:00

Trying to keep busy in the midst of all Tom's surgery issues hasn't been easy. One way I kept busy was to paint and move the girls rooms around. They were sharing a room with the bunk beds and the other room was a playroom. We decided to give them their own room, since they really were not keeping the playroom cleaned, Mom was. One room was painted a light pink with dark pink sponge paints and the other room was the opposite. Hannah detested a pink room, so she choose her color - Cornflower blue. Took 2 coats of primer to cover the pink and 2 coats of blue to cover the primer.

Here are their finished rooms. Sami's is the bigger room, so it made more sense for her to keep the bunk bed in there and Hannah has Tom's old headboard from when he was growing up on the twin bed. Sami now has a little play place underneath her bed where her doll house is stored and Hannah gets privacy to do her homework at the desk (which is the last thing my Grandmother gave me before she passed away over 25 years ago). Right there between the bed and the wall, she has pillowed piled and if you can't find her, she's there reading a book or playing her DS. Nighttime is definately easier because Samantha's not climbing the ladder pulling Hannah's hair and singing keeping her awake. My sister and I each had our own room with bunk beds that stacked on top of each other. So we would go months with our own rooms and then decide to share and move everything around. Yes, we fought like cats and dogs, but we really enjoyed each other's company, I hope the same for my girls.

Update on Tom (the Unknown)

2009-01-15T15:04:00.001-05:00

Kind of funny I'm calling my husband an unknown...but I seriously believe he's certainly ONE OF A KIND! I'm sure I'll look back on these past 2 years with his health issues and smile (couldn't bring myself to say laugh). For anyone out there contemplating marriage...get a whole-body workup from a certified doc before you tie that knot!

Ok, on to the update: Heard from his back surgeon and he believes it has something to do with the SI joint injection he received last week. So he's going to call the doc that did the injection. We get a call late Tuesday night from the injection doc and he's still puzzled as to why Tom's having issues with his right foot, but will call him the next day to check on him. Later that evening, Tom was laying on his left side and said he felt a golf-ball size bump in his back when he laid on his left side. He shows me where he feels it and it looks about the same spot as they did the injection. We have him lay on a heating pad for about an hour and low and behold after that 1 hour of heat, he can wiggle his toes. As soon as he puts the foot down after getting off the heating pad..it starts to swell again...just more confirmation to me that it strings from the injection. Injection doc calls yesterday and after Tom told him of the revalation of the heating pad and knot..his response is "Ohhhhh". He wants to see Tom tomorrow morning. So hopefully that was a good "Ohhhh" and he knows what the problem is or NOT! I'm banking on the 1st one so we can get this cleared up. I'd like my life to go back to normal where I do the "mom" stuff around the house and he does the "dad" stuff. I didn't enjoy my evening spent removing caulk from the tub and replacing it and having to redo it cause I pressed too hard and it wasn't filling the cracks like it should! Or having to chissle open the frozen trash can lid to put a bag of trash in there. I need a vacation!

P.S. - Yesterday was my nephew's 14th Birthday - Happy Birthday Tyer, and thus starts the beginning of birthday season.

Dealing in the unknown...

2009-01-13T10:23:00.000-05:00

For those that know me, know the issues my husband is having with his back, etc. He hurt his back at work in November of 2007. They kept telling him, he must have sprained something and it would get better. Fast forward to July of 08 when he finally had an MRI done on his back. The orthopedic surgeon diagnosed a degenerated disk in his back at S1/L5. So he started Tom on physical therapy 3 times a week. After 3 weeks of physical therapy and still no progress, he sent him to a pain management doc for steroid/cortizone epidural injections into his back. After 2 of these, the pain management doc said there was nothing he could do for him. He could do a 3rd shot, but since the first 2 didn't take, there was no reason to do the third. So that ortho doc sent us to a Neurosurgeon for surgery. We had that appointment on the day before Thanksgiving and surgery scheduled for Dec. 9th. Came through his 2 hour surgery 4 hours later because of some issues they encountered with is nerves and joints. Spent 5 days in the hospital and was sent home. He had an elevated heart rate (up to 170 at times) and a fever, so they were not going to release him, but finally after a vast array of tests and finding nothing wrong with him (remember this..cause it's a pattern), so they decided to release him.

Right before Christmas his right leg continues to go numb at certain points and is throbbing and causing him alot of pain. The day before Christmas Eve, he gets an MRI of his back to see what the cause of the pain is. We see the doc the next day and figure out that his SI joint is acting up (sacroiliac joint), which causes sciatic pain down the leg. He sends us to another pain management doc for a lanacain injection in his R SI joint. We get that done on Monday, Jan. 5th. He tells the doc in the office after the shot that his toes were tingling, he said it was normal and would wear off when the shot did. Fast forward 2 days...his right foot is starting to throb and really bother him. 3 days later it's swelled almost double in size. Call the pain mgnt doc back and he is very adamant about this not being anywhere related to the shot he gave him. Call the surgeon and since he was really worried about a possible DVT (blood clot), they told me to take him to the ER.

3 1/2 hours spent in the ER, an US and xray later, they can find NOTHING wrong with his foot. Thank God it's not a blood clot nor a fracture of his foot...but come on people...what could it be? The ER doc is very adamant about it being something with the shot he received on Monday and I even called the pain mgt doc from the ER (got all his docs on speed dial) and again nothing he did with the injection could cause swelling and pain in his foot.

Ugh, believe me, I'm very grateful all the major things that could have been wrong are not wrong at all....but his foot is still in alot of pain and still swollen.

It helps to work for Radiologists, so I had another one look at the xrays they took last night and he couldn't pinpoint anything that would cause pain and swelling. "Could be" a stress fracture, but that wouldn't show up on xray for 1-2 weeks. Only other thing they could do is an MRI which would show a start of a stress fracture if that's what it is or send him to an orthopedist (our original doc) for more tests, opinions, etc.

So...today, Tuesday, January 13th at 10:43am - still waiting on his back surgeon to get out of surgery and call me back to figure out what our next course of action is!

P.S. Happy Birthday MOM - Hope you have a fantastic day and we can still make our lunch date today!

Party-Packed Weekend

2009-01-11T20:50:00.000-05:00

We had a party-packed weekend. Friday night, Hannah had her Girl Scout Cookie Rally kickoff for girl scout cookies (selling started on Saturday). They had games, pizza and you could earn tickets from the games to turn in for prizes.

Saturday, we went with my sister's GS troop to Young Chef's Academy. Hannah

and Samantha (and the rest of the girls) had a blast. They got to prepare their own food, mix it and then eat it and even make a cookbook of the things they made. They made sloppy joes, fruit salad, soup and baked apples. The sloppy joes' were the bomb. I've always used a can when I make sloppy joes - NEVER AGAIN! Just take 1lb of hamburger (cooked), 1 can of

tomato soup and mustard and ketchup to taste and heat through. And whala..sloppy joes. They tasted great.

These little cutters are really cool too..I got one for each of them and some scrapers. Tomorrow night, they get to make dinner for us.

Then Saturday night we went to Tyler's birthday party (he turns 14 on Wed) and then today we had a party for Mom's birthday (which is on Tuesday). Good thing we have nothing going on this week.

Such innocent slumber

2009-01-09T11:30:00.000-05:00

Samantha had to sleep with her Princess Aurora crown last night. She played with it for about 1 hour when I finally told her if she didn't go to sleep, I was going to take it from her. She found a hook right above her bed that she hung it on before I left the room.

About an hour later, I go in there to shut off her string of princess lights and make sure she's covered and this is what I discovered. Does she look like Sleeping Beauty waiting on her Prince or what? I couldn't have staged this picture any better. As soon as I saw her, I grabbed my camera, took a pic and had to wake Tom up to see :)! Soo precious.....

So then I felt bad about taking her pic and not Hannah's while she was sleeping..she definately sleeps like her Father!

Tonight is our Girl Scout cookie rally - so I'll make sure I get lots of pics of the delicious cookies Hannah will be selling!

Consumer Ratings - Need a new vacuum?

2009-01-07T10:53:00.000-05:00

I'm certainly not Molly Maid by anyone's standards. Now, my neighbor is the epitome of Molly Maid..you will NEVER find a speck of dust or anything in her house, it's always impecable. I just walk in awe around her home.

We've been needing a vacuum cleaner for a while. Actually, we need to replace our carpet, but that's not gonna happen for a while. So I got a gift card for Christmas from Target and we decided to bite the bullet and get one. We got the Bissell Cleanview II Bagless Plus. As skeptic as I am...I figured I'd give it a try before I left for work this morning. We've always had vacuums with bags..never one without one. So this was a new experience for us.

We have a sectional couch...so I decided to just do the square inside the sectional on the carpet. You could actually see the carpet fluffing up after the vacuum rolls over it. Tom and I sat there in awe. After doing that tiny square of our living room, I took out the cup that holds all the stuff that our carpet had been holding and here's what we got. Can you even imagine that all that stuff was in our carpet..just that little square. Gives a whole new meaning to the 5 second rule we've been using!

My family - 1st time blog post

2009-01-06T21:30:00.000-05:00

This is my 1st attempt at trying to blog. My friend April has a blog and she's completely coherent and even witty in hers, so here's my attempt :o)!

My year has been eventful (opposite of uneventful - good word huh!).

I am 35 and work outside the home as a Residency Administrator for Eastern Virginia Medical School and have been there for 15 years.

Tom...hmmm...do I have good things to say about him...hee hee...yep, he loves me...(is that good enough) lol. I can attribute all of my grey hairs (do I have any), lost hairs and increased stress level to him - he wins the award. In 2007 he spent 4 weeks in the hospital for a ruptured colon and then about 4 months out of work. This year, 2008, he spent less than a week in the hospital for back surgery and has been out of work for going on 3 months and is expected to be out another 8 weeks - YIKES! Did I mention he's a police officer - oh sorry, are they this accident prone? Someone, anyone?

We will be celebrating our 15th year anniversary in 2009 and I can say that 99.9% of those years have been estatically happy (no, I'm not holding my nose). We enjoy camping (we have a 31ft travel trailer) and spending time as a family. Before the back surgery, every weekend he had off, we were on a camping adventure..whether it be with family and friends or just by ourselves.

Hannah is very much a tomboy, so she's enjoyed 2 seasons of Baseball this year. She loved every minute of it and especially liked when she played "pitcher" and "catcher" this past season. She loves to read and play her DS. Just recently she moved out of her sister's room and had to have her room painted blue. She is doing great in 2nd grade and is on Honor Roll.

Samantha is our little princess. She loves to dress up, dance, sing and just be the center of attention when she walks into a room. She's in Pre-K and is learning so much from school and her older sister. She is taking dance at school and has her 1st recital coming up in May.

Asleep yet? Hope not! I'm just an ordinary wife and Mom and these are my adventures!