30 Days of Giving

If you haven't discovered Etsy yet or http://thirtyhandmadedays.blogspot.com/ here is your chance! 30 days loves to highlight her golden finds from browsing Etsy shops and then generously offer a giveaway of the cute things she finds. This time, she found BeeBee Mod, "something special for the little one". If you go to 30 days' blog (see link above) and leave her a comment you will be entered to win a super cute hoodie. And when you browse either BeeBee Mod's site http://www.beebeemod.com/ or her etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6227206 and buy anything during the month of November, half of her sales will go to help a family or organization in need. I know you'll find something, so check it out and feel good about getting gifts and giving twice as much with them this year!Enter to win this hoodie from BeeBee Mod on the 30 days website!

Photo Tag

Cool! I've never been photo tagged before! I was supposed to go to my 4th folder and post the 4th picture, but wouldn't you know it, my 4th folder only had 3 pictures in it! so, here are 2 from it :) one is (appropriately) Evan at Halloween in his spider costume (2006), and the other one is from my June 2006 trip to Ohio. Alex, Ashlee and Evan in the Amish Country.
I tag my sis Jenn, my sis-in-law Brittney, Mindi, and Kathleen!

The Story of My Life Part 2: Animals, Animals and More Animals

As I mentioned in Part 1, we had a lot of pets. I think one of the requirements to live in rural Ohio must have been the number of animals you must have, I think it's something like 20. Hehehe. Our main pets were our cat Snowy Anne (who had a litter of kittens pretty much every year. Though Mom and Dad were very diligent about us finding homes for the offspring. ), our dogs Angel (the nicest mutt ever) and Sheena (a collie) and later our toy poodle Peaches and another mutt named Liz. Then there were the rabbits. We had silver martins in the beginning then later added Lops and Netherland Dwarfs. And of course, there were the wild animals. We'd pretty much adopt anything we came across--mice, orphaned baby birds, frogs, and one time, a garter snake. My mom was pretty tolerant when it came to all these pets, but the funny thing was, the toy poodle was our only indoor pet. That was, until....the snake! How we ever convinced our mother to let us bring that reptile into the house, I'll never know, but she did. We put that snake in an old aquarium in our bedroom. Now, my mom would come and check on us at night, and apparently she checked on our friend the snake as well, because one night Mom woke us all up in an uproar: the snake was gone! So, Mom was pretty freaked out thinking this snake was roaming around our house somewhere, so she vowed we could not go back to sleep till it was found. Come to find out, the snake hadn't gone far, it apparently had abandoned the comforts of the aquarium for the comforts of the kleenex box that was on top of the aquarium to keep the lid on. It was asleep on the tissues. Well, needless to say, that poor snake was booted out of it's bed and sent out into the cold night. But the rest of us slept pretty good after that :)

Watcha Got to Hide?

Cassie and I talked about this phenomenon the other day: the "hiding" of the packages with the doormat. So I avowed that the next time the ups man came by and ever so thoughtfully draped my welcome mat over some boxes I would snap some pics. Seriously, this camouflage is not fooling anyone, so why do they do it? Did the delivery guys have to take "Draping Doormats 101" in delivery school or something? Is it an ancient art form that I am unfit to appreciate? My favorite was once, a stack of boxes 4 or 5 high with my doormat perched on top. It looked like the cherry on top, not a cloaking device! So, maybe I'm being too hard on the delivery guys, after all they are in a hurry, and I am amazed at their ability to ring my doorbell and be in their truck when I open the door two seconds later thinking they will still be there so I can take the packages from them rather than scoot around my front door to wrestle them into the house myself. But, I digress, I will give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to kindness, but if any delivery guys who come to my neighborhood happen to read this, I just want to let you know, you can save yourself a second and just leave this girl's doormat alone. Thanks!

The Story of My Life: Part 1

Maybe you think you know me. Heck, maybe you really do. But here's the true story and I'm going to start from the beginning for all of those who might be interested in the details. I was born Sept. 9th in Tiffin, Oh at Mercy Hospital. My mom went to take a pee and, oops!, I was ready to come out! I was tiny, a mere 5 lbs. 6 oz. but I was fierce. I had the cord wrapped around my neck, and I came out purple, so I blame any emotional instability I suffer from on my lack of oxygen for the first bit of my life. My mom and dad took me home to their rural Ohio house where my 3 year old sister Jenn eagerly awaited her new playmate. Disappointed by my inability to play, she promptly decided to feed me since I was crying and must need something and of course she wanted to help. So, my poor mother comes in the room to find Jenn stuffing crackers into my mouth. Mother promptly saved me from a death by crackers and by then poor Jenn probably realized she was going to have to wait a few years until I was any fun.
But fun we had together because, if you noticed the mention above, we lived in RURAL Ohio. As in, most of my friends lived on farms (we didn't) and Jenn and I were the only playmates we had within a few miles. We were lucky though, we lived on an acre of land, had two small forests to play in, fruit trees to eat off of if we got hungry, a nice hill in the backyard to sled down in the winter, lots and lots of pets, and tons of gardens to run around in thanks to my Dad. We had a great life!

Justin's 1st B-day!

happy Justin before his doom at target awaited!

Justin's 1st birthday was last Friday the 10th and I decided to "start" (our appointment was at 10:40am. hehehe) our day out with going to Target to have pics taken of Justin. In retrospect, I don't think I would do that again! Justin hated the whole thing and it stressed me out to get him and me ready and off to Target. For some reason, at the time I made the appointment, I just thought it would be more special or something having his pics taken on his birthday day. Anyways, here's a pic of Grandpa holding Justin while we shopped for a present for the little guy once the photo session was out of the way:
Once we got home I got Evan his lunch and then took him to preschool and afterwards I stopped at Zurchers to pick up balloons. It was time to do all the party stuff while I had the chance! So I went home and decorated, hid treasure hunt clues, frosted cupcakes, all the things that are done faster without the help of children (sorry kids!).The party started at 6pm and I had only invited family (pretty typical thing to do for a 1st b-day) so Steve's parents were here visiting from CA and my sis and parents and then Steve's sister and her family were there, so still a pretty decent crowd. Everyone loved the food:
and the kids loved the treasure hunt and we all had a good time just sitting around chatting and stuffing our faces. Now, of course, the highlight of any 1 year old's b-day party is how are they gonna react to the cake? Steve called it on Justin: not very well! Justin usually goes to bed at 6:30pm so he was already tired and then we strip him down, put him on some towels and all stare at him expectantly. Yeah, he didn't like that.
So Steve gave Justin a taste of cake:

and then Justin decided it tasted good enough to play with and tried to pick the cake up, put his foot in it, things like that:
Finally we had one messy baby, then came the bath from hell and then we opened presents :)
And that was basically the party! I felt like I gave a lot of party details in my last post, so hopefully you get the gist of how things went. But it really was a fun and simple party and Justin loved all of his new toys. So happy b-day little guy! I'm just so blessed to have my Justin in our family. He's such a happy little kid and we needed someone else in the house who was laid back to even things out! Hope Justin enjoyed his day too, from this last pic you can see he's come quite the way in the last year!!

My Secret Weapon

I know this isn't the post you've all been waiting for (you're like--what's up with all the pumpkins and a secret weapon? wah?) , but I promise the one where I talk about Justin's 1st b-day is next. I just had to do this post first because, without what I am about to talk about, Justin's party would not have been possible. The secret weapon I am talking about is a woman who saved me a lot of grief and stress over what to do for Justin's 1st b-day and was none other than the domestic goddess herself (dgoddessblog.blogspot.com)! What started out as a shot in the dark in the form of an email tentatively asking if she had any ideas turned into her becoming my very own personal party planner. seriously, how have I lived without this woman and her ideas for so long? She is creativity incarnate and she volunteered lots of time and energy on my behalf (and justin's too of course!). She made these uber cute invitations that had "hooray for J" on the front (a lot of you will know what I'm talking about since you probably got one in the mail. sorry people, the secret is out, I didn't make them!) and she also made Justin a happy birthday banner:
She also made a take home favor for the kids and gave me an awesome idea for a treasure hunt that the kids LOVED (my 4 year old is already planning one for his b-day!). She also called around to find me the best deal on sandwhiches and balloons and came up with the color scheme of light blue and brown that looked great. My party planner also had connections in the form of a cousin, Katie, who made Justin the sweetest little cake:

Not to mention she also got the cousin to hook me up with some cupcakes that I decorated with light blue M&Ms "J"s (also her idea :):

My party planner also emailed detailed instructions on how to make my own veggie and fruit trays which turned out rather beautiful if I do say so myself!:I'm so glad I sent that email out, I never dreamed I'd have so much help! Having the Domestic Goddess on my side truly made all the difference in how Justin's 1st b-day turned out. She's the best party planner ever and she has my eternal gratitude :)

A Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

I'll be the first to admit that we have very few family traditions, but one of them that has managed to stick around is our annual visit to the pumpkin patch on 90th before Halloween. Last year, we went right before Justin was born. So I was walking around 9 months pregnant (we literally went days before I was due) looking like I was hiding a pumpkin under my shirt. It was awesome. This year, we decided to go while Steve's parents were here for Justin's b-day. I had the bright idea that I would pick up some groceries at Ream's that I needed for Justin's party and then meet everyone at the pumpkin patch. I literally made it in time to give Steve enough money to pay for our stuff at the checkout line. Sigh. At least Steve took some pictures for me...go family traditions!

Steve and Evan pumpkin hunting

Look! Justin is letting someone else hold him!

the happy family--but wait? where's mom?

proof I did show up! lol!

Funny Random Pictures

I was looking through my picture files and came across so many good, cute, funny pics that I really don't have any use for, but it's fun to reminisce, so I'm digging them out for your viewing pleasure as well! You're welcome!

July 2006--my star!

February 2006--want a kleenex? what happens when daddy falls asleep...

christmas 2005, meet down south steve!