aaron.anica.emily.isabel.claire

We celebrated Izzy's 1st birthday on April 18. My baby is one already! What a fun year it has been. Izzy is the happiest, mellow little girl. We just love having her in our home with her smiling face and her sweet, easygoing nature. As you can imagine, her hair tends to draw a lot of attention wherever we go and she's getting to the point where she recognizes when people are talking about her hair, so she'll put her hands back at the back of her neck to caress her hair as people admire it. Things I've come to love about Izzy: -I love how she has the hugest smile that lights up her whole face -I love how she has conversations with herself in her carseat - I love how she makes friends wherever she goes -I love how she claps for herself when she's proud of what she's done - I love how she calls her big sister "Muh" and even tries to mimic my scolding tone when Em's in trouble - I love how when she's really tired and doesn't have a blanket she...

Emily and I had our birthdays over the weekend. She had her 6th and I, my 29th . I'm sure this will be the first of many 29th's. :) I'm a little apprehensive about 30, which is weird because I always thought people were dumb for not wanting to get older, but it might just be the fact that my younger fabulous husband likes to rub in how old I am. When I look back over the last decade these are some of the major events and accomplishments I met in my 20's and I share them not to brag, but solely to have a more positive outlook and convince myself of the potential and goals I have for my 30's. I traveled to 4 countries and 15 states I attended 4 schools Lost 2 permanent teeth I graduated with my Associate's degree I graduated with my Bachelor's degree I obtained my Cosmetology license I married twice Divorced once Became the mother to 2 beautiful girls Had 2 dogs Lived in 6 different houses/apartments Lived in 2 states and 1 foreign country Boug...

I like to unwind by reading before bed at night. I recently had a fun, easy read I thought I'd share if you like fashion. It's "You Know You Want It," by Eric Daman who is the fashion designer for Gossip Girl. When I go to the library I often like to pick up books people have suggested on their blogs, but I'm out of suggestions so if you have a good book please leave me a comment so I can pick it up : ). Also I would like to turn my blog into a book for journal purposes. Does anyone know a good site you would suggest to do this?

This little angel is the greatest blessing we received in 2009 and what a blessing she is! Am I the only one who thinks she just keeps getting cuter and cuter? I'd be lying if I said that 2009 wasn't a difficult year for us because I sure feel like it was. As with every year we had our ups and downs, but for some reason we seemed to stay more on the down side trying to make our way up. When I get discouraged about life I try to think of the blessings I have rather than what I don't have. Sometimes it hard, but I am definitely grateful to be the mother that these two little girls call "mommy." Would I be considered a bad mother if some days I wonder if they were sent as a blessing or a trial :) ? I hope somebody else has had that same thought . . . We are hopeful for this upcoming year. We have some lofty goals and pray that we may find the right path to achieve them. Some of the greatest challenges of the goals we set seem to be the small steps we have to ...

Izzy was born into the perfect setup with a clever older sister who came before to blaze the trail and teach her important life lessons. Unfortunately letters and numbers aren't the only thing Emily is learning in Kindergarten. A couple weeks ago I overhead Emily talking and it sounded like she said "Damn." When I asked her what she said she looked at me and said, "Uh, ram?" To which I replied, "Well it sounded like you said damn." "Is that a bad word?" I told her yes and she wanted to know why. Good question! I told her it isn't good to say and started to say, "Unless your talking about . . . well, nevermind . . ." That didn't fly. "Unless what mom?" she persisted. "Well unless your talking about a structure used to hold up water." "Oh, like a beaver builds?" "Exactly Em." Fast forward to a few days ago when I was working on my computer that kept freezing up. Emily working nea...

We're still trying to figure out a good recipe for lemonade in our household. It seems like just when we get the right amount of sugar mixed in someone comes along and squeezes in more lemon. Aaron recently lost his job and I, for certain reasons, felt compelled to quit my part time job. Timing a little off? Maybe. We've enjoyed the last several weeks together while job hunting and we were even considering going into early retirement until we realized it doesn't pay very well at this stage in our lives. We usually go to the gym each morning after dropping Emily off at school and we had to laugh at the following experience. I had decided to try something new other than my normal routine and so I rushed Aaron to get to the gym on time so that I could go to a hydro aerobics class. Now for whatever reason I had no expectations in my mind of what the class would be like, but I was totally shocked when I walked out of the locker room to see 20 gray haired elderly ladies and ...

Emily brought this assignment home from school today. Should I be concerned about what she's learning? :) It made me laugh especially as I tried to help her with it.