No shame

Sitting here watching The Voice and saw my little blog on one of my bookmarks and figured I should fire up a new post.

Not even attempting to do any catching up, just sharing a little ongoing saga of mine.

A few months ago the driver's side window on our van stopped working. It won't go down at all. This stinks of course. It really stinks because the passenger side window doesn't work either. If you put it down there is a good chance it won't go up again. This isn't horrible in the summer, but this time of year I really don't want to get stuck with a window down driving around in the snow (what? snow? yeah, still hoping for one big snowstorm before spring).

So it should go without saying that I often feel a bit claustrophobic in my car.

But the whole driver's side window adds a whole other dilemma. Can anyone guess?

Anyone? Anyone?

Ever try to go through a drive through without being able to put down your window?

I have! It's super fun!

My sister in law shared with me over Christmas that the same thing happened to them in their van (different models, don't worry) and she said because of it she doesn't go through drive through fast food anymore.

It was at that point that I realized that I must have no shame. Because it hasn't stopped me at all. I have not stopped making trips through the Chick Fil A drive through, in fact I added the occasional Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's run but that is purely due to my Keurig being on the fritz (that could and should be a post in it's own) and Wawa discontinuing their any size coffee for $1 deal.

In fact I usually completely forget that I can't put my window down until I get up to the pick up window and have to remember to pull up an extra six inches or so so they can open the window and I can get the goods.

Yeah, I've perfected it! And yes, I've realized that I clearly have no shame.

Deep down I'd like to think that they remember me with fondness.

2011

It's 2012!! Where did the year go? 2011 was certainly NOT the year of the blog over in my neck of the woods. I think it's the year I blogged the least since I started years ago.

I'm trying to get back to it so I thought it would be fun to look through the pictures on my phone from the past year and pull one or two off from each month. No real criteria, just whichever one(s) I felt like sharing!

January

This is one of my favs of Catherine and I can't believe it was a year ago. Love her!

One of the many snowstorms and a cute picture of my three favorite people. I realized that there is a better one of Ella but I believe I actually already posted it (surprise!) so I'm ok using this one.

February

My two girls heading to school on Valentine's Day. It's rare that they dress alike but it's something we all love.

March

March bought tooth drama. I was so tempted to post the picture I took of Ella mid wail as we tried to figure out how to get her tooth out (never seems to get easier for her). Instead I was good and posted a smiling (sorta) after shot.

April

This is basically the best picture we got this (and every) Easter since Matt is gone well before we are awake and gets home after us. I made Ella put her skirt back on in an attempt to create some sweet holiday picture. I actually love how disheveled it is - that's definitely more the reality!

May

In May Catherine graduated from PreK with her best buddy Nolan. I love the two of them together!

While visiting my Aunt, my dad decided to take a spin on her son/his nephew/my cousin's (apparently it was important you understand the family tree with this) Harley. I'm not posting the video I took, but I basically scream "slow down!" every time he rode by. It was slightly nerve wracking, but my dad had fun and didn't wreck.

June

This was an early highlight of our summer, Matt and I, thanks to his sister waiting in line to get tickets, went to see Mumford and Sons in concert. It was an amazing show and I am SO glad we got to see them.

The next day the girls and their cousin got to go get feathers in their hair. Little did we know that this was to become quite the fad that summer. Apparently we were ahead of the times and everywhere we went people commented on Catherine's bright orange feather. It stayed in for months and is in every picture we took. That aside, I love the cousins together in this picture.

July

I just love this picture of my mom reading to her grandkids during our beach vacation. She takes every opportunity to read to them and instill the love of reading in another generation.

I had to share this since it's one of my favorite iPhone pics. A few years ago who would have believed this was taken on a phone!

August

Another beach trip and another iPhone picture that is just cool. I caught this lightening strike while watching a storm roll over the skies at the ocean.

Ok, that's all I have posted for now. I want to say that I'll finish the rest of the year, but you know what happens when I say I'll be back....basically if you believed that then we only went to Disney for one day! Baby steps, baby steps. I'm working on it and hopefully will get some more regular posts this month.

Catching Up

So there is no way I can catch up on the past few months - I still hope to, but man, blogging just has fallen off the radar for me a bit. I still really enjoy reading yours though!! I think the hardest post is the welcome back post after an unintentional hiatus. So this is it, the put on your shoes and get out the door post....using a running metaphor!

This fall flew by at warp speed. We started school. We went to Disney and the week of our lives. We coached and played soccer. Each of these events deserves its own detailed post. I'd like to think that will happen some day. Didn't say it will.

I lead a Bible study, organized a nonprofit event and taught Sunday school. Matt ran around like crazy, trying to keep his many many plates spinning. He started building our outdoor kitchen area (you know, in all his free time). We had our big annual fall

fest, biggest one yet, and people got to admire the half finished outdoor kitchen area.

Ella excelled in reading and grew frustrated in math. Catherine loves Kindergarten and her prereading skills are taking off!

We went trick or treating with the girls as Princess Leia and Queen Amidala from Star Wars. Thank you Disney World for turning my girls into Star Wars fans!

The teachers and parents knew who they were more than the students.

Someone even called "I love you Princess Leia!"

I still read tons of books and have become a bit of Young Adult junkie! It's just so fun and easy to read, but every now and then I mix it up and read something matur

e and somber like Still Alice.

Catherine lost her first two teeth with no drama at all. We weren't expecting this because it creates such fear in Ella. Catherine pulled one out on her own and popped the other one out opening a water bottle at school. She was quite pleased with herself - Ella agreed that losing a tooth at school would be a big no no for her. Ahhh my two unique girls!

toothless Catherine

We had our second big church community Christmas celebration (called Joy) and then the day after Ella turned eight! How is it possible that she is eight years old? She had a fashion/makeover party that was so much fun, especially because I had a group of friends there helping with the makeovers. That definitely deserves a post because there are so many fun pictures.

We enjoyed a wonderful month celebrating Advent. Every morning the kids beg to go open the Advent calendar and Catherine kindly suggested that I put in the activity the night before. Imagine that!! I think my favorite activity was family game night when we played Christmas charades. The kids chose hard things like "Santa Baby, Hurry down the chimney tonight" (Ella) and "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas "(Catherine). For local friends, can you tell we listen to a lot of B101? And Mariah Carey Christmas Pandora station.

The hardest part is ending a very disjointed and random post. There's no real way to tie it up. So I'll post some pictures!

random October snowstorm - that's all Catherine wants right now

and she keeps wishing we could have pushed this snowstorm back a few months

getting ready to dance at Joy - love her beautiful smile!

look closely, can you tell I'm a Star Wars fan too....

The Prelude....

The girls knew that they were going to Disney World. It was a trip with my whole family to celebrate my parent's 40th Anniversary. I know, quite the celebration, huh?! But I decided awhile ago that all the details about the trip were going to be a surprise. Most specifically - when we were actually going!

They asked a number of times in September when we were going to Disney and I said later this fall. I kept having them believe that it was still a long ways away. Unfortunately the hard part about this was that everyone knew we were going and everyone I talked to knew it was a surprise but I still was paranoid that they would say something about Disney and someone would respond with "oh, your parents told you, aren't you so excited?!" or something like that and totally give it away.

I was right and wrong to be worried.

Right because I know of at least three times people said things about "Disney" and "this weekend when you leave" right in front of them.

One of those times it was Matt! Can you imagine how paranoid I was that we wouldn't pull off the surprise if their own dad was almost giving it away?!

Wrong because as clued in and somewhat suspicious the girls usually are (especially Ella) they didn't catch on.

The funniest/worst-at-the-time was the night before we left and we were having dinner with our friends Jon and Renee. They kept throwing little hints on purpose to drive me crazy, like telling the girls, that no, they couldn't do a sleepover that night, but they promised them they wouldn't sleep at home the next night, and after Renee painted their nails she told them looked as pretty as a princess. Not so bad. But Jon followed up with "you look pretty enough to meet a princess!"

I was kind of freaking out - it seemed so obvious to me - but the girls never picked up on it. I was so relieved when they went to bed that night, knowing that we would get to surprise them in the morning.

I knew that the best decision for our girls would be to tell them as close to the actual trip as possible. We told them three hours before we left. At one point in the morning Ella said "why did you tell us so early, I want to leave NOW!"

Ahhh....momma loves being right!

Coming up - Day 1!

Amazing

We are recovering from an amazing trip to Disney. I have been neglecting the blog these past few months but this trip is one I must record!!! (I can't forget back to school and birthday posts as well)

This week I'm gonna start with a Disney post...promise!!

Summer Catch Up

I have badly neglected my blog this summer. It has been a busy summer, but that's no excuse! We really have had a lot of fun and I can't let the summer pass by without sharing some of it!

Starting with....Vacation!

I know I did a mini post on our beach vacation with my family but I added a few more pictures because everyone knows that's where the real fun is!

It was a great week. The weather was great, we were right on the ocean, close enough for the older kids to walk to and from the beach by themselves (assuming people from our group were already there - I'm not that low key), the cousins all played together wonderfully - no fighting all week.

It was very relaxed - we stayed late at the beach, ate late dinners, watched World Cup soccer, went for ice cream, went to the boardwalk, drank wine, watched the sun set, watched the full moon over the ocean, dug holes in the sand complete with steps for the kids to walk down, snuggled babies, watched fashion shows (bottom right is an example), flew kites (no that is not a giant bird attaching Matt, that is our super cool dragon kite) and much more.

To sum it up, it was a treasured week of time with my whole family. So thankful!!

Back to the Beach!

For some reason I couldn't post this at the beach, the laptop kept giving me an error code. So it is a bit depressing to publish a post that was written early in your vacation when you are home and unpacked. But oh well...here it is!

We're on vacation for the week, enjoying time with family and fun in the sun.

I'm getting time with my nieces and nephews

The kids are enjoying story time with Nama

Much much water fun

Lots of cousin time - this is the first picture of all four girl cousins together...

And it's only Tuesday! More great times to come - currently I'm sitting at the beach house with a great view of the ocean, enjoying some time before I head out into the 90+ degree heat. Four of the kids are out on dates with grandparents or dads and the rest are quietly playing.

It's a good day!