When is a dog just a dog?

As soon as you bring home a new baby!

When we were pregnant with Dominic people tried to tell us that our precious (HA!) beagle, Annabelle, would cease to live as the baby of the house and would be delegated to pure dog status. Neither my husband nor myself believed it. We were so in line with the idea that she was like a child to us that we sent cards on her behalf to our relatives and even had elaborate birthday parties for her.

Seeing as this is her 5th birhthday today, I thought I'd take a stroll down memory lane and re-visit her first two birthday parties. Notice she ceased having parties once Dominic came home?? Want to fancy a guess why??

First Birthday party:


Eating dog friendly ice cream out of a beagle mug, of course!


Dog friendly cake


The cake station complete with homemade doggie bag favors.


The birthday girl in her homemade birthday hat. CUTE!

Second Birthday party:


The birthday girl all dolled up. The hat's not homemade, but there's still some love involved.


Check out this fancy cake. My reasoning? We were expecting a little boy and I figured I'd never have the opportunity to buy a cutesy cake again...


The front of the invitation.
The back read: "Come and help me celebrate my last birthday as an only child." That about sums it up, folks.

Annabelle has had three birthdays as an older sibling. Sadly, I cannot recall that we have done anything special for her on any of these occasions. As a matter of fact, I almost totally forgot about today until the last minute! I told D we will make her a birthday cake tomorrow afternoon for April Fool's Day.

Don't feel too bad for ol'Annabelle. She still gets to sleep in the master's bed and only drinks filtered water. She has her own doggie door for easy access to the fresh air and/or air conditioning and she gets to eat anything that Dominic drops on the floor. All in all, I'd say her life isn't too bad, would you?

C'era Una Volta...

It's time for the big nursery reveal! Jillian Grace's room is 98% ready!!!!!!!

Here is a 360 degree tour of the room:


Looking in the door


Looking to the left about 45 degrees (notice the butterfly mobile I made????)


The butterfly mobile from underneath. Isn't it so dainty and delicious?


A close-up of the fingerpainting that D made for his sister's room.


Left at 90 degrees (the saying means, Once Upon a Time in Italian)
**please ignore the fan ball hanging down, it's a TALL ceiling!


Looking behind you at the door wall (this wall has some boxes and bed rails to be moved into storage)


A close-up of the vintage Italy map I framed that is to the right of the dresser/changing table.


Looking to the right as you walk in the room. This wall is mostly closet.


A close-up of the handmade canvases. Translation is: I wish you well or I love you.


That brings us back to looking straight on as you enter the room.


A close-up of the very first thing I bought for the nursery. Thank God for Children Inspire Design for knowing that nursery decor can be modern and fun!!


And lastly, the shelf from BRU with the latest buy, the vespa print from Target. Dominic picked out the cross. It is the exact match to his, only in pink!

So, there you have it! Jillian Grace's nursery, a room fit for a principessa!! Ci vediamo!

Lions, tigers and bears, oh my!!

Spring camp is right around the corner and as promised I've got the details right here!!

This week's theme will be Animals!! Dominic helped me pick it out and I'm super excited to get it going!! There's so much good stuff out there to help study animals. Here's our tentative schedule:

Monday- petting zoo animals
Read Click Clack Moo, Maisy Goes to the Farm
Create animals out of shape templates and create an Animal Cracker book

Tuesday- jungle animals
Read Rumble in the Jungle and Who’s In the Jungle?
Create lion masks from paper plates and Giraffe spots with Bingo markers

Wednesday- large mammals
Read Polar Bear What do you Hear?, The Zoo Book
Create zoo diorama with foam trays and yarn threaded through

Thursday- monkeys
Read My Heart is Like a Zoo, What do you say when a monkey acts this way?
Create monkey name hangers and sequence 3 pictures correctly

Friday- zoo field trip!!
Zoo scavenger hunt and awards ceremony
Graph of animals

I have been made aware of an animal class at the zoo that Friday morning that will be a hands-on activity with frogs. I will be emailing the mommas to see if they are interested. It'll be an extra $15 in addition to our tuition for camp. Should be fun, nonetheless!!

I made the t-shirts a few days ago. I am waiting to make the girls shirts. The Michael's by my house only had 4 lion iron-ons and I need 6 total. If I have to get a different animal then I'll do the 3 girls shirts the same and have the lion on the boys. So that's why I am waiting. I have to make a special trip to another Michael's sometime today, hopefully.

Here are the finished shirts:


I LOVE the color combo and how they came out!!

Enjoying the view???

Here's my view today...can you guess what we've been up to??

This week we participated in one of the coolest playdates thus far: Vincent VanGogh's birthday celebration. Each toddler was provided with a canvas, paint, paintbrushes and sunflower cutouts. A classic VanGogh piece was on display and the tots were instructed to make their own. There were 5 of us in attendance and all 5 did something different! I have to brag and say that D was the ONLY tot to do the WHOLE thing on his own. He pointed out where to put the sunflowers and I glued them down. Here is his:



Pretty impressive, huh? I think this kid's got the artistic gene in him yet.

This week we also witnessed the "supermoon". Daddy and D make it an event to go out and say goodnight to the moon as often as possible and I was able to catch this sweet moment the other night:



I pinkie swear that the next post will be all about my Spring Camp. I have 3 of the 6 shirts made and ready to post.

Tonight it's off to the fish fry. We are meeting two other couples and their tots so that should be a lot of fun for all involved!!!

Happy Friday, everyone!!

blink*blink*blink*

Not really sure where this post will take me, but haven't posted in almost a week, so here we are....

This week we had another ultrasound and got to see little Miss again. She has been a good girl and is no longer sitting breech, but is now head down!! YAY!
I took, and passed, my glucose test. YAY!!
Ladybug's room is coming right along. The closet is finished, girly clothes are hanging up, pictures are up on the wall...only a few more touches and the room is ready for it's official reveal. YAY!!

I will share the link to one of the items I made specifically for the room. I saw this cute little butterfly mobile:



over at PBK and swooned. Then I saw the price and swooned again, I mean it's just paper and string. I resolved to make my own. And so I did. I must say, I did a pretty good job. AND I got to customize mine to match the room!

D has been sleeping like a champ and eating like a horse lately. I KNEW he was getting longer so we measured him yesterday and he's grown an inch and a half since his birthday 6 months ago! He's pretty proud of himself.

We made a chocolate cake for L's birthday and delivered it to her this afternoon. A was just waking from his nap so the boys got an impromptu playdate while L and I chatted. She is expecting in May so our little ones will only be 3 weeks apart (depending on the EDD). It's so nice to have some friends going through the same stage in life at the same time.

Sunday we were invited over to K and G's house after Mass for a pancake breakfast. G picked at her pancakes while D snarfed down 2+!!!
D wasn't too impressed with G's little brother, A. He liked to look at him sleeping but didn't really pay too much attention to him once he was awake. Ah, well....

We met them on Tuesday morning for some toddler fun at the local arboretum. I didn't get too many pictures as D was all over the place! The kindermusik people were there and D had fun dancing around with the big kids. I did manage to snap a picture of D and G sitting in the little mermaid's enchanted chair. Cute!

***Photos will follow shortly, my camera battery is dead and I'm too lazy to deal with it right now. I'm all cuddled up in bed with one eye on the monitor. There was a loud truck that just drove by and startled D so I was expecting him to call for me, but he didn't. What a brave boy!

BTW, my Lenten "project" has been going very nicely. I realize as I'm reading the book that I haven't really been too bad about taking my hubby for granted. We still seem to have the newlywed thing going for us.

Chillin' at BRU

This morning we had a busy day. Trip to Babies R Us and a playdate all before noon!

We picked up a few essentials for sister's room (wall shelf, changing pad cover, bed sheet) and even managed to get D some new boat shoes for Easter! He's going to look all spiffy in his Easter wear.

We met up with about 8 moms at the neighborhood playdate at K and P's. They have a WONDERFUL backyard with ample space for a growing boy (or 8 toddlers) to romp and explore! I sometimes wish we didn't have a swimming pool just so that D and I could go outside and run around and play on nice days like today.

Note to self: hound David about getting a pool gate set up!!!

And really, what good is a post with no pictures???

Enjoy this little gem I snapped in the BRU parking lot:



***I just wanted to stress that we were totally on our way in the store, car turned off, hence the little bugger not strapped in to his seat. No tots were harmed in the snapping of this photo. ;)

And to ashes you will return...

Today is Ash Wednesday. 40 days until Easter (give or take). This year is already flying by.

Yesterday we celebrated Mardi Gras in a rated G fashion: with a stroller parade!! The moms brought their strollers over and we decorated them in yellow, green and purple. Then it was off to parade through town. Unfortunately, the neighborhood newsletter has yet to come out door-to-door so we didn't have anyone to parade for. :(

But, it did make for some cute photos!!


all of us on our parade


my little Mardi Gras reveler!!

For Lent this year I tried to think of something more meaningful to do. I came across the 40-day Love Dare Challenge and decided to try it out. Since it's 40 days it works nicely with Lent. It is supposed to help you re-focus on your relationships. With baby girl on the way I have a feeling my time with David will be seriously cut.

Day 1 challenge: refrain from saying anything negative to your spouse.

In friendship news, we have a date this Saturday to meet L and A for breakfast and then we'll watch the big St.Patty's parade through downtown!!! Always a great time!!

Lessons from Laura

This afternoon I was able to watch one of my favorite shows growing up...Little House. That probably dates me, but who cares?? It was, and still is, a great family oriented show that I would look forward to every day after school (following Brady Bunch, of course).

This particular episode featured a pre-teen Laura who has a crush on a boy at school and she is trying to attract his attention in a different way. Since she is such a tomboy she lets out her horrendous braids for a loose mane of hair. Her crush calls it a mop. She "borrows" some of her mother's expensive perfume and the boy asks if she can smell the dead skunk that is certainly around. Poor Laura.

I can remember all too well the unrequited love of a childhood crush. That, coupled with the awkwardness of puberty, is forever etched in my memory bank.

What does that have to do with this post??? Well, seeing this episode made me recall my day at the aquarium with D. We had about 12 moms and kids meet at the Children's Aquarium for a fun morning of fish, food and fun! I checked the list of RSVP's before I left just to see who I would know and one name popped out at me. I met R at a previous event and we hit it off pretty well. We've since been to a couple of events together and have talked a bit here and there.

I was excited to see her and C again. She and I just click as mom's, although we couldn't be more different- she is sorority sister-esque and I'm the jeans and tee kind of gal, she is intelligent and classy and I'm just plain old me. I feel like she's too good to be my friend. Weird, isn't it?

This motherhood connection may very well be the only thing we have in common. Yet I still enjoyed talking with her and even got a bit excited when she chose to sit by D and I at lunch. SO JUNIOR HIGH, no??? Ha!

I don't really know how this "friendship" will go. There's not much to tie us together other than we both have little boys whom we cherish and our parenting style seems to be in synch. Our kids are 2 years apart, we are of different religious beliefs, we live in different cities...nothing else in common. It seems such a waste to not pursue what could be a friendship but for now I'll table the occasion and think on it. If it happens, it happens.

Why couldn't I have been such a logical thinker when I was "in love" with my schoolgirl crush??

My rambling post is now over.

Photos coming soon, I promise.

Happy Birthday, Dr.Seuss!!

Today we hosted a playgroup to celebrate Dr.Seuss' birthday. D just loves the book, The Cat in the Hat, so I was more than happy to indulge him in some birthday cake. Anyway, the teacher in me really wanted to celebrate with the school children!!

There were 6 of us scheduled to attend, but only 3 of us were able to make it. Boo! Oh well, more cake for us!!! HA! Here's some of the fun we had:


Our colored hat creations.


An inside view of the Cat in the Hat birthday cake.


The cake table.


The cake all ready to cut in to!!


I asked the kids to wear something red in honor of the Cat. We read the The Cat in the Hat(well, most of it), colored our own hats and sang Happy Birthday!

All in all, a great playdate.

March Madness, already???

While I LOVE the month of March (first day of Spring, St.Paddy's Day parade, Spring Break) I am so not looking forward to March Madness at our house. I feel like we have limited time with DH as it is and this month I have a feeling it will only be worse. Think there's a chance he'll forget it's March?

Last week was a busy one for us. We had something pretty much every day! Here's a sampling of what we've been up to:


Oscars party at Nana's. Cheering for Toy Story 3!!


Enjoying some ice cream. After repeated requests to stop at the "Ice cream store" I finally relented and we swung through the drive through for a treat.



Sidewalk chalk at the park with our church's mom's group.



Finger painting a picture for sister. Look for this to pop up in a future post about sister's room!!


Tomorrow we are hosting a playdate for Dr.Seuss' birthday. I'll post pictures of our birthday cake tomorrow (and maybe some of the kiddo's enjoying it!)