Spring Break: Food, Fun, and Pink Eye

Well, we're winding up Spring Break over here. The end of a vacation week always makes me ponder two things that defy the laws of physics (I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, but it sounds smart, doesn't it?):

1) Why does a week of vacation go by much more quickly than a work week does?
2) Why does a week of vacation produce twice the amount of laundry that a normal week does, especially when we still pretty much still subscribe to the whole one-outfit-a-day routine?

Anyway, because Darryl has traveled so much for work lately, we decided we needed to get away just the three of us for a few days. We did NOT want to head south and join the mass exodus of Georgians headed to Florida, so we went to Charleston.

We left Sunday after church and arrived in Charleston that evening. We found a pretty good Italian restaurant for dinner, and then we settled in at the hotel for the night.

Monday was kind of a weird day filled with this and that. We browsed around downtown, had lunch at a place called Barbara Jean's (it was very yummy), and then went back to the hotel for naps because Amelia and I were both in bad moods. :-) We later went to Folly Beach and just walked around. Amelia enjoyed playing around at the water's edge, but it was too cold and windy to really do much more than that. I have some really great photos from this excursion, but I just realized my "good" camera is in the car, and Darryl has my car right now, so those will have to wait until later.

Here's a photo of Darryl and Amelia walking around in downtown Charleston, though:
Tuesday was a better day. We had an INCREDIBLE lunch at a place called Poogan's Porch. Y'all, at this restaurant, I had the best biscuits I have ever had in my life. Seriously. I'm pretty convinced these biscuits are going to be served for breakfast every day in Heaven. I was so pumped about these biscuits that I had to take a photo of one and post it to my Facebook page immediately.

And here's a photo of Amelia and me by the restaurant's sign because I wanted to document the place where I had eaten the BEST. BISCUITS. EVER.
Forgive the ball cap. I had pretty much surrendered to the Charleston wind and humidity. (If I hadn't contained my hair with a ball cap, it would have totally looked like Monica's hair on the Friends episode where the whole gang went to some tropical locale.)
Anyway...that afternoon we went to the Family Circle Cup at Daniel Island and watched a couple of tennis matches. It actually was more fun than I thought it would be, and Amelia loved being outside and bouncing her big tennis ball, which you can see in this shot I took with my phone.

And here's Amelia watching a pro practice. I can't remember who this is, but I thought it was cool how close we could get to the practice sessions. (Edited to add: This is Jankovic, whom I am currently watching play in the semifinals on TV.)
That evening, per Amelia's request, we took a horse-and-carriage ride through some of the older parts of Charleston. Let me clarify...Amelia isn't some prodigy history buff who wanted to know the history of Charleston. She just wanted to be close to the horses. Anyway, I didn't take any photos of that. :-(

We came back Wednesday. I don't have anything eventful to report about that.

So where does the pink eye fit in with all this? Amelia and I both were fighting allergies/sinus infections/something all week. Amelia's eyes have been kind of, well, gross, so when I took her to the doctor yesterday, she was diagnosed with pink eye. (I really thought it was just allergies.) So we're ending our week with lots of laundry and a case of pink eye.

Coming later...cute beach pics of Amelia! :-)

A Little Catching Up--Amelia gets new wheels!

Friday afternoon, we were enjoying the nice weather outside with our neighbors. They have a daughter a little older than Amelia, and she let Amelia take a spin or two on her Princess bike. Amelia loved it so much that we ended up getting Amelia her own bike (a Tinkerbell one!) Sunday afternoon.

(Disclaimer: We don't buy Amelia everything she loves just on a whim like that. However, her birthday isn't until November, and it definitely won't be that nice outside then.)

She loves the bike and has had so much fun riding it up and down our driveway. Yesterday we went to the park and she had a blast riding on the trail. I hope the weather stays nice like this--not too hot and not too cool--for a good while longer!

A Little Catching Up--Altered Angels!

Here's what happens when I don't keep up with blogging--I feel overwhelmed by all the stuff I need to catch up on, so I put it off.

So I think I'm going to tackle just a few things that have happened in the past month or so in no particular order.

So here we go...

My scrapbooking friend Mary opened a scrapbook store in Alpharetta called Altered Angel. She had her grand opening yesterday, and I met my friend Molly there to do a little shopping.

I'm so excited for Mary and very proud of her for pursuing her dream. Her first day was great, and she really has a lot of cool stuff that most stores in this area don't have.

Afterward, my friend Blayne and I went next door to Cinco to chat over some chips and queso. (Blayne was helping Mary with the grand opening.) It was great just to have some conversation time along with some good food.

Yay for scrapbooking and girlfriends!

Ooops...a month has flown by

I really am a horrible blogger, aren't I?

I'm going to try to get a real post up later this week.

The last few weeks have been crazy busy. And here it is, Saturday night, and I'm attempting to wade through the 125 or so midterms I have to have graded and entered by Tuesday morning. Oh, and did I mention the midterms are ESSAYS? (I'm not trying to knock my school, but explain the logic in requiring the English Department to make students write in-class essays for the midterm, but then scheduling that midterm on the last day of midterm week, thus giving the English teachers the least amount of time to grade.) Granted, I'm not making comments on them--I'm just scoring them with a rubric--but still, that's a lot of writing, y'all. And the majority of it ain't pretty.

Okay. Obviously I need to go. I just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive and hope to return to the blogosphere soon.

An assortment of things

Apparently to keep up with my blog, I need to be snowed in for a week. :-)

If you can't tell, life has just been busy lately. And I don't really have anything of substance to write about, so here's a little trivial nonsense for you:

1--I started going to the gym again this week. Go me!

2--I have a sore throat again...or still. This has been off and on for the past six weeks. I go to the doctor, get an antibiotic, and it feels better until the antibiotic has run its course. Oh, and teaching all day AND having a sore throat...not a good combination.

3--I am LOVING Darren Criss on Glee.



4--I'm so behind on Modern Family.

5--I love that one of Amelia's favorite things to do is get in Darryl's and my bed and watch TV. She'll say, "Will you take your shoes off and get under the covers with me and watch Mickey Mouse?" At the end of a long day, it's kind of hard to turn down that request.

6--For about the 842nd time on this blog, I'm about to vow to lose weight. Again. I've gotta do something. My plan is to watch Jennifer Hudson's interview with Oprah as well as last Tuesday's DVRd episode of The Biggest Loser to inspire me.

7--I miss Baton Rouge at this time of year. On Saturdays in the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras, Darryl and I might have gone to the bakery down the road from our house and bought a still-warm-from-the-oven king cake...and it was awesome.

8--The fact I mentioned the king cake right after the weight loss vow shows that I might possibly have an issue with food.

9--We lost our February vacation days because of the snow week. Can I just say that I am REALLY going to miss those days next week?

10--Here's number 10 just because I wanted to have 10.

The post where I sound like Maw-Maw

I've had one of those "when it rains, it pours" weeks.

Darryl left Monday night for a business trip.

Tuesday, I had a 14-hour day. I got up at 4:45 (as I always do), let the house at 6:15 in the morning, and didn't return home until 8:30 that night. Our school had an AP Parent Night that evening, so I had to talk about my class, AP Language. Between leaving work and the meeting, I picked up Amelia, took her to dinner (where we had dessert because we so deserved it), took her to the school to kill time, and then took her to a daycare teacher/friend's house so I could go to the meeting. By the time I left the meeting (it wasn't even over and had already gone on an hour!), picked up Amelia, and got home, I had decided to skip Amelia's bath even though she had chocolate in her hair (from our dessert).

And of course, Wednesday morning I got up at 4:45 to begin a whole new day.

Wednesday evening, my eye felt very irritated, but I figured it was just eye strain, allergies, whatever.

I also forgot to mention that somewhere around Monday and Tuesday, I was getting the beginnings of a sore throat. (By the way, I had to spell "throat" for one of my students this week. Seriously?)

Thursday, my looked red and puffy before school, but I still thought it was just a minor eye irritation. By the end of the day, it was RED and swollen...and it throbbed with pain any time I was in any kind of light. Then I found out that several basketball players were home with pink eye.

So I turned in a sub request for Friday (today), quickly got together some lesson plans for the week, and then went to a doc in the box. The doctor walked in, barely got past the door, and said, "Oh, yes. You definitely have pink eye." Then she proceeded to poke me in the face around my nose, and when I practically came off the table in pain, she said I definitely had a sinus infection, too.

When I picked up Amelia from daycare, I found out that Amber, the one who kept Amelia Tuesday night, was also diagnosed earlier in the day with pink eye. So who knows? Maybe I gave it to her, or she gave it to me...regardless, it's no fun.

We picked up my antibiotic and my eye drops from the Target Pharmacy, and my total was $111.00. When I asked why it was so high, they said it was the eye drops, that they were $99, and my insurance had paid $9.00 of it. Thank you, United Heath Insurance. That is so generous of you.

Amelia and I got home, ordered pizza, and watched Despicable Me, which is totally cute. What does it say about me that my favorite movies of late have been animated???

I got Amelia to bed, then went to bed myself. Darryl got home, and bless him, agreed to take Amelia to daycare for me this morning. I got up this morning and helped get everything together for her, and then I went back to bed and slept until a glorious 9:30.

So here I sit on the couch, surrounded by Kleenex, the remote control, my computer, and my phone, and frankly, I am glad this week is OVER.

The New Look!

I was so ready for a different look to my blog. I think my last "look" was too girly for me. Last week I tried to win a gift certificate to Designer Blogs, but I didn't win (shocking!), but when I browsed around on the site and found this very inexpensive design (and even more inexpensive at 30% off), I went for it. I wanted something clean and linear with just a little color. I love it!

Amelia Sings

Before you watch, you need to know the following:

1--Darryl was on a business call while this was going on.
2--Forgive the clutter. Three people had been in this house for three days at this point. Things were getting messy. (And I totally cleaned up most of that today! Go me.)

P.S.

My blog design is just temporary. Shabby Blogs (the site that offers free backgrounds) said I had to reset my html code, and my old background wasn't available. I don't like how the banner (the thing at the top) looks with the green/pink, BUT the banner is a huge pain to create and I just don't have the patience right now...especially when I think I might just do something new altogether in the next few weeks.

Thoughts on Snow Days

We're at the beginning of Snow Day #4. I anticipate that we'll go back to school tomorrow (and I am willing to bet that the students are going to be WILD), just in time for a three-day weekend. Thank goodness. I could use a day off.

So here are some things I have learned from our Snow Days:

1. Laziness just lends itself to more laziness. Monday, when I first thought we would be out just one or two days, I was very lazy because I "deserved it." However, it has been very difficult to climb out of the rut.
2. It is a bad idea to bake cookies early in the Snow Day week. Nothing like being trapped in the house with freshly baked cookies.
3. Our house makes a bad home-office, as Darryl can attest.
4. I think I'm more of a homebody than I realized because these days off? I have loved them.
5. The great thing about Snow Days is that they are unplanned; therefore, we don't overplan them with activities and stuff to do. (Not that we could go anywhere anyway...)

So what have I done with my time? I've cooked some, played around with the computer (I might be addicted to iMovie, y'all), played with Amelia, and been lazy.

It's been divine.

Now, the big question is when we're going to make up for all these days off...

(P.S. Not to be Debbie Downer, but I realize as much as I've enjoyed these days off, some of my friends--especially business owners--have really been hurting this week. I'm crossing my fingers that we thaw out soon so things can get back to normal for them.)

Project Life

This may be of no interest to anyone except scrapbookers (and maybe a few relatives who love me unconditionally and will read/watch whatever I post here).

After my Glen Ella weekend, I have scrapbooking on the brain. One of the projects I completed over the weekend was Project Life.

Project Life
Last Christmas (Christmas 2009), I asked my mom for Becky Higgins's Project Life Album Kit. I won't go into detail with what comes with the kit because you can read all about it on her website, but I took the "photo a day for a year" approach. Now that the album is complete, I absolutely love it. (Also, this album could easily be done by someone who isn't a "scrapbooker." It's basically an album with some cards for journaling.)

The difficult part for me was just the process of printing the photos and getting them in the album. Because of that, I decided this year to do the digital version of Project Life to eliminate the whole printing the photo part; I simply upload the photos to my album as often as I want. I know I sound like an infomercial here, but yesterday I uploaded my first batch of photos and the site was extremely easy to use. At the end of the year, I will simply order my completed album. (If you are interested in this...if you pay now, you get about $30 off the price of the album.)

Okay, y'all, we are in the midst of a WEATHER EVENT, so I have some spare time on my hands. I made a video of my album if you are interested.

That's right. A scrapbooking video. Don't judge me.

All the photos in the slideshow are just some of many in my album. And I am so glad I have them.

Glen Ella Weekend

This past weekend, I went to the Glen Ella Inn for my yearly scrapbooking retreat. I really can't convey in words how much I enjoy this weekend. And let me tell you, after "single parenting" Amelia through much of December while Darryl was traveling, I was READY READY READY for this weekend.

After going to this retreat for three years now, I feel as though I can consider many of these women to be friends. While many of us might not see one another outside of this retreat, we all look forward to meeting up during this weekend to catch up, laugh our heads off, and participate in a hobby we're all passionate about.

For a Giveaway...Blog Makeover?

This is a kind of random post, but I would really like to give my blog a makeover, so I'm entering a giveaway at Designer Blogs. (I get to enter one more time if I link over from my blog.)

There are some really neat designs there, though, and they seem very affordable, so if you are interested in spicing up your blog, you might check them out!

Snowed In

Just in case you've had your head buried in the sand and didn't know, Atlanta (along with many other places) received a big dumping of snow Sunday night. We received 6-1/2 inches.

School was cancelled Monday.

It was cancelled today.

It is cancelled tomorrow.

I've had a little extra time on my hands, so I decided to make my first movie in iMovie. I don't think it is too bad for my first try.

Allow me to present my first short film, "Amelia and the Snow."

1-1-11

Don't those numbers just suggest a fresh start?

I'm not making a list of resolutions this year. I know some specific things that I want to work on and do better, but overall, this is my goal:

I want to get my life "right."

What does that mean? I don't even know the answer to that.

I've been pondering a lot of deep issues lately, but I'm not in the mindset now to write a deep post.

I just know that something doesn't feel right. Is it my job? Is it my relationship with other people? Is it friendships I've let fall to the wayside? Is it not "acting" when my heart says I should do something for others? Is it blaming others for things that are 100% my fault? Is it turning to food when I'm stressed, bored, or overwhelmed? Is it a spiritual black hole that I need to climb out of? Is it opening myself to negativity when I really need to see the glass half full? Is it letting little things drag me down instead of ignoring the good things all around me?

Is it all of the above?

Rather than listing my resolutions, I am instead going to leave with a Bible verse that I am adopting as my "life verse for 2011":

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26

Christmas: The Post Without Photos

I will post some Christmas photos soon. Posting them now would require me to get up from this chair, and I'm really, really comfortable.

All in all, we had a very good Christmas season. Amelia was more aware of everything this year, so that made it much more fun. However, the big bummer was that Darryl was gone for most of the month because he was working in various places out of town and out of country; the week before Christmas I was actually starting to worry that he might not make it home in time for Christmas because he was stuck in snowy London. He was supposed to fly out on the Sunday before Christmas, but instead was delayed until Wednesday...and that plan was a little dicey at best. Everything worked out, though, and he made it home Wednesday evening, and Amelia and I were SO glad to have him home.

I have to give a big shout-out to my mom, who pretty much dropped everything to stay with me the last week of school so she could just help out. That week is typically hectic, but because she was here, I was able to concentrate on stuff that needed to get done for school (making out three exams=not fun), and she took care of Amelia. I was very glad to have her here!

On to Christmas activities...
Christmas Eve afternoon, we had my cousin Vicky and her husband, Robert, over for dessert. We had peanut butter cake (delicious!) and opened presents. After they left, we went to a Christmas Eve service at Buckhead Church. The service opened with this:



After the service, we ate at Carabba's and then came home to get ready for Santa. We left out reindeer food, and then Amelia picked two of the cookies she had "decorated" to leave for Santa. I think he enjoyed them!

It was just the three of us for Christmas morning, and that was nice because it hasn't really been "just the three of us" much at all lately. Amelia loved her new toys, especially the dollhouse Santa left her. (Seriously, she played with it ALL day...so maybe it was a present for Darryl and me as well, haha.) I also made this recipe for Christmas breakfast along with sausage balls. Let me tell you, that coffee cake is GOOD, but the baking time is NOT correct; as a result, we were all starving by the time it was done.

Not long after breakfast, we had a white Christmas!! It was such a nice day...warm and cozy inside while the snow fell gently outside. However, Darryl thought that if we didn't go ahead and leave for Florida (we were originally going to go the day after Christmas), we would be stuck here and wouldn't get to go at all. (I think the London experience has scarred Darryl for life.) So after lunch (also delicious...Honeybaked Ham, sweet potato casserole, and roasted asparagus), we scrambled around and packed up everything and headed out for Florida around 4:00.

It was snowing so heavily around Columbus--and by then it was dark--that we came "this close" to getting a hotel for the evening, but it eventually lightened up and we were fine. We got to Florida around 11:30 and were so ready for bed.

The next morning, we did Christmas with my parents and hung around the house most of the day. We went over to Darryl's sister's house at one point for a while and then opened gifts there, too. That night, my mom fixed a big dinner, and everything was delicious. (Apparently I cannot come up with a different adjective to describe good food.)

Fast forward to Monday afternoon...Darryl and I went out for the afternoon. We hadn't had a date in I don't know when. We shopped around some and took advantage of some after-Christmas sales. Then we spontaneously decided to see the movie Life as We Know It at the dollar theater (cute movie but very predictable...as we expected), and then we had seafood for dinner...yum. (Wow...I branched out with a different adjective.) Then we picked up Amelia from my parents' house and went to Darryl's sister's house, where we enjoyed a family tournament of "Just Dance 2" for the Wii. I chose to be a spectator because several people had their Flip video cameras out, and I for one did not want to see my dance video posted to Facebook.

And Tuesday, yesterday, we came back home. While I really enjoyed being with our family, we all know there is no place like home. Amelia and I are enjoying an easygoing morning in our pjs, but we're meeting my cousin for lunch soon...so we better get going.

I'll have some photos soon!

P.S. Two days later, I realized I didn't link to the recipe I made Christmas morning. I've added it now. :-)

Making Up for Lost Time: Thankgiving--A Photo Essay

This year, our friends Damian and Rebecca from Baton Rouge came to visit us for Thanksgiving. We had celebrated Thanksgiving together for several years before we had Amelia, but this was our first time to get together for this holiday in four years! The holiday is best explained by the photos below:

Two days before, a 5:45 a.m. trip to Wal-Mart, Starbucks in hand

A fried bird, 'cause that's the way we roll

My dressing, which was perhaps the best it's ever been

Two kinds of cranberry sauce, both canned and high-brow

The iPad, a tool used to babysit my child so I could cook stimulate my child's brain and motor skills

A good post-meal nap, complete with a blankie

A good Black Friday shopping experience

A sign, in case you ever need to know how to get to Snow-ville or Chilly Town

Lights!!

Busting out the onion dip because we hadn't had enough to eat at this point

Girls hanging out at Buffalo Wild Wings while the boys watched the game

Making Up for Lost Time: Amelia's Birthday

So yes, it was a month ago.

We celebrated Amelia's birthday at the same place we had her birthday last year. It's one of Amelia's favorite places, and having it there means I don't have to clean my house only to have it demolished by three year olds.

This year we went with a Tinkerbell theme. Amelia was totally into it this year and enjoyed seeing all her friends. Here are just a few photos:

Amelia and her friend Sophia:

Most of the crew:
Amelia dancing like a crazy woman with her friends:

The Birthday Girl with her cake. Unfortunately, she tripped and fell right before so her face was still streaked with tears...so I didn't get a great "cake shot."
Seriously...three years???

Amelia and the Train

Darryl, who somehow turned into a Christmas elf this year, bought a train that goes around the Christmas tree. In the first video, Amelia is dying to open the train. She was on the floor, just staring at it, for about 20 minutes before the first video was taken.

Enjoy!

Train Anticipation

The Train's First Run

37

And continuing my retrospective of the past month (see Halloween post below!)...I turned 37 on November 3rd without much fanfare, but I enjoyed a nice dinner with Darryl and Amelia.

And just before Thanksgiving...Allow Me to Present Halloween!

I know, I know. Halloween was, like, several weeks ago.

Ahem.

Anyway...

Last year, we didn't get to do many Halloween festivities because Amelia was sick. We made up for it this year!

Halloween weekend kicked off with Amelia's daycare party. Here's the class, all dressed up:


As several of us were leaving the party, a couple of kids decided to sit in the "cubbies." Pretty soon, we ended up with this:

Saturday, we went to Amelia's friend Sophia's birthday party. Because it was princess-themed and costumes were encouraged, Amelia was able to don her Tinkerbell outfit once again.


That afternoon, we did the Trick or Treat thing at the mall. It wasn't very good...it was crowded, and many of the stores didn't participate.


Sunday morning, the preschool department did a "heroes and princess" theme to close out their month's series of lessons. Darryl works in the K-5 area, and they had a hoedown theme going on, and he was expected to dress accordingly. Allow me to present my cowboy and Tinkerbell:

See my fancy carving work on that jack-o-lantern?

And FINALLY, that night, we went to Sophia's house to Trick or Treat. The two girls were so cute together, running from house to house, saying, "More candy! More candy!" They had so much fun, and it was probably my favorite part of the weekend.

Disney World--in Pictures

Almost three weeks ago (I know--I'm a horrible blogger), we met my parents at Disney World for the weekend. We drove down on Friday after a half-day at school and returned on Monday. We spent Saturday and Sunday having all kinds of Disney fun. I started out writing a post that probably would have been of no interest to anyone but us, so I thought a photo approach might be best. Granted, I have about 200 photos of the weekend, but here are some of my faves.

On Dumbo, our first ride


With Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen from The Princess and the Frog--she was so in awe of all the characters she met that she didn't give much of a smile, but she is still talking about it several weeks later.

I'm not going to post a photo of Amelia with every character we met, but since she is currently obsessed with Tinkerbell, I just had to post this one.


This is at a character breakfast we went to (the food was SO good), where we got to meet Minnie, Donald, and Goofy. You can't tell it in this photo, but Amelia was so excited when each character came to our table!


I love this photo, mainly because you can see the fall decorations, "Main Street USA," and Cinderella's castle in the background.


This photo makes me LAUGH. Darryl took it (he was sitting in front of me and Amelia) on Mickey's Barnstormer kiddie roller coaster. Amelia laughed the whole time, and my mother (in the back) was trying to hold on to her glasses. This is actually only one photo in a series of about 10, but this is one of the few where I don't have a massive double chin. :-)


I know the color is wonky in this photo, but I like it anyway. We went to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, and Amelia was dressed as Tinkerbell. Her personality completely changed when she put on this dress. Suddenly she was Miss Priss, twirling, singing, and acting prissy. It was quite comical.


Also quite comical was the fact I decided to don some Minnie Mouse ears for the party. Amelia got a kick out of it (anything for my kid, right?). Here we are, enjoying some Sugar Babies (remember them?) before the parade.

We really did have a wonderful time. I do have more photos I will probably show, but it takes a while for them to load. I might do a Part 2 soon...

I also have some super-cute Halloween pics to post, and I am really going to do my best to put them up in the next few days.

The Pumpkin Patch

Saturday we went to Burt's Pumpkin Farm. I was all set to get some great photos, but the sun wasn't "just right," and Amelia was too busy trying to pick up 50 pound pumpkins anyway.

It was really more fun this time around, though. She was really excited about all the pumpkins, and she picked out her own special "baby pumpkin." Here are a few of the better photos.






Yep. We went on a hayride, too. Amelia really enjoyed it and kept saying, "Hold on!" the whole time.

Afterward, we went to an apple house and had stocked up on some apples and...a few fried pies. Oh my word at the goodness.

It was one of those weekends that you don't want to end. Sigh.

What we've been up to lately, in bullets

• We took Amelia to a sing-along version of Beauty and the Beast at a movie theater the other night. We all enjoyed it. Amelia was antsy for about 30 minutes in the middle of the movie, but there weren't many people there, so it was okay for her to walk around in our row a little bit. We made it to the end!
• School has been hectic. It is obviously approaching time for a Fall Break; I'm at that point where I could choke some of my students (and they probably feel the same about me) if we don't spend a little time apart soon. :-)
• I'm happy for the return of Fall TV. I got sucked into Dancing with the Stars again, but I've also been watching Glee, Modern Family, and Grey's. (For the record, the Britney episode of Glee was terrible in my opinion.)
• While school has gotten me down a bit lately, I have enjoyed writing a few recommendation letters for some students from "my favorite class ever" from last year. It is exciting to watch (and help) them get to the next step of their education.
• Amelia is taking swimming lessons. Our goal is to have her swimming by next summer. She's doing pretty well, but we still have a ways to go. :-)
• We are looking forward to an exciting trip coming up soon, but I'll give you details "after the fact." Just know we can't wait!
• My Keurig bit the dust a couple of weeks ago. Something was wrong with the water pump in it. Costco took it back (without a receipt!), no questions asked. I ordered a new one straight from Keurig, but it is significantly louder than my old one. Hmmm.
• I have returned to carrying a purse full time for the first time since we had Amelia and I had to switch to a diaper bag. After leaving my clutch wallet behind at several places and going through the panic of "what if my wallet is gone?" I decided I needed to buy a bigger purse. I found one that rocks my world. Darryl mocks it because it is big, but I love it. Yea for fun purses!!
• Amelia is going to the potty more, and apparently everyone has seen her "pee-pee" in the potty except me. What's up with that?
• I'm enjoying the cooler weather. Fall is most definitely my favorite time of year. Time to pull out the pumpkins and the delicious soup recipes!!
  

Fairy Princess

While Amelia can still have some "terrible twos" moments from time to time, I am loving this age right now. Of course I have loved Amelia immensely ever since I knew of her existence, but she is really melting my heart these days.

When I pick her up at daycare, she drops whatever she is doing and squeals, "Mommy!!!" and runs to me with her arms wide open for me to pick her up. Then she turns to her friends and says, "MY momma!" Of course, I interpret that as, "This is my mommy and she is so awesome!" Ha!

And she is into Tinkerbell and fairy princesses big time. Really there is nothing cuter than a little girl with wings and a wand, is there?

The other day Amelia put on her wings and her wand, and we played outside while Darryl grilled some steaks. I super-love these pictures. Her wings are upside down, but I think that just makes the pics even cuter. :-)




She is going to be Tinkerbell for Halloween, and oh. my. word. Her costume is too cute. I've had to hide it in the back of Darryl's closet because she wants to put it on all the time.

These are fun times!