Asheville, NC vacation

We're back from our crazy awesome trip to Asheville, NC and man is it hard to get back to real life! We had such a great time hanging out with family for a week, it was just so nice to get away from all the stress of "real life" for awhile and enjoy the gorgeous mountains (which Memphis is sadly lacking.) 

Our trip started out pretty rocky when our GPS misguided us up a VERY windy mountain, which caused both of my kids to get carsick (one in the car, which is my very least favorite thing in the world btw.) After we slowly made our way back down the mountain and finally got there, it was nothing but r&r as we settled into the lake house for a week. We did a lot of shopping, pontoon boating, and LOTS of hot tub time. Consequently I've decided I need a hot tub in the very near future (husband, if you're reading this take notes.) Nothing major, just a nice big hot tub. With cup holders for my wine, because hot tubbing becomes super classy with wine.

Of all the things we did all week though, my favorite thing was the gem mining. It gave us all instant gratification - you buy a bucket full of sand with gems buried in it and sift the sand out so you always get gems in your bucket - and it was SO much fun for all of us, me included! You just dump shovels full of sand into the little sifter thingy (there has to be an official title for it, but there you go) and just sift all the sand out until you find your treasures. Connor even got into the fun, but we had to rescue several of the rocks from being eaten. We got a lot of great gems, and I plan on posting a tutorial soon on how to make jewelry out of some of the gems we found!

All in all it was a pretty great week but it went by way too fast. I guess vacations are like that though, aren't they?

And then this happened.

So while we were in Pittsburgh for the holidays, Connor learned a new trick.

Yep, Connor learned how to walk! He had been taking a few steps here and there before the holidays, but he decided he was over the whole crawling thing and just took off during our 10 day vacation. And now, he is into EVERYTHING.

Want to know how to babyproof a house? Let a one-year-old loose and hide anything that they find interesting.

We went to my sister-in-law's house for New Year's, and Connor was thrilled. It was like we had just taken the kid to Disney World. We spent most of the time hiding stone coasters and antique cameras, blowing out candles, and attempting to keep him from leaping off of the stairs (which had no banister) and onto the cat.

I feel like his sole purpose is to break everything. I mean, just look at this face. It's a look that says "I am Connor, Destroyer of All Things."

Needless to say, we are re-babyproofing.

Oh and while we were there, he also decided to get 2 more teeth. I need this kid to stop growing!

I'm back!

Happy 2012! I hope everyone had a great holiday break, I know we did! We took a 10-day long vacation to visit family and friends in Pittsburgh for the holidays. It was really great to unwind, recharge and just enjoy spending time with everyone.

These two had an especially good time over the break. They were spoiled rotten for Christmas with tons of gifts from both sides of the family. I feel like I could easily open my own Toys R Us in my house right now.

(Sorry in advance for the photo bombing!)

We made up for lost time and spent lots of time with family. It was nice to just sit around and laugh with each other. We also ate a lot of really good food, which I will be making up for over the next few weeks :)

I'm glad we ended up not getting a Christmas tree. Yaya and Papa (my husband's parents) had at least 4 decorated trees that I can remember. There may have been more.

While we were in town, we also got to celebrate our little niece Avalene's second birthday.

The party was "snow" themed, so we pretty much added lots of snowflakes to the existing Christmas decorations and made our own little winter wonderland. My sister-in-law, Shannon, was the mastermind behind pretty much all of the decor.

I just loved her winter scene on the table, complete with little snowy cupcakes!

Above the table, we strung lights and little tissue paper poufs.

I used my Silhouette to cut out lots of snowflakes to make garlands and hang from the ceiling.

And for the party favors, Shannon used mason jars, hobby trees, and plastic animals to make snow globes. There were so adorable!

For the food, there was a pasta bar with all of the fixin's. (PS you know you're a blogger when you stand off to the side taking artsy pictures of mushrooms and olives.)

We had such a great time but like always, the time spent with family was too short. I'm looking forward to a new year with lots more great memories!

Virginia wrap-up

We're back from our trip to Virginia, and oh how good it is to be out of the car and with access to food that doesn't come in combo form. The kids spent lots of quality time with my parents, and Pat and I took advantage of the free childcare and enjoyed a much-needed date night out or two while we were at it :)

Our 4th of July morning was spent in Colonial Williamsburg, which is an absolutely gorgeous area. I think one of the things I miss most about Virginia is the scenery. Memphis is a concrete jungle, but Williamsburg is covered with trees and history just about everywhere. You can't even walk into the Food Lion without seeing someone dressed in colonial garb.

The colonial houses lining Duke of Gloucester Street were gorgeous as always. Sometimes I forget people actually live in the historic area among the costumed actors.

(PS, I want a stream running through my backyard!)

We also got to see the Fife and Drum Corps perform while we were there. They shot off cannons to recognize each individual state, then marched down the main street. I just kept thinking about how I was glad not to be wearing all the heavy clothes they were wearing in the 90 degree heat.

I lived in Colonial Williamsburg for over 8 years, so while it was all fun to watch, it was stuff I'm used to seeing. At the beginning, it was cool to see all the costumed actors walking around acting like people from the 1700's. Now, I just think about how glad I am not to have to wear all the clothes they were sporting in the 90 degree weather. And it's always fun to watch the tourists. They followed the poor fife and drummers wherever they went.

The night of the 4th, it rained so no fireworks for us. It worked out though because the show was going to be way after Connor and Haley's bedtime, and I knew they would be little zombie children if we took them with us, and lots of loud fireworks going off probably wasn't going to help either.

We pretty much spent the entire weekend eating our way through Williamsburg (which we tend to do ANYtime we visit family) and the extra couple pounds I found were totally worth the delicious food. Oh, and Haley came up with new names for my parents. They originally wanted to be called "Nana" and "Pap," which Haley decided to change to "Nina" and "Map" this past weekend for some reason. 

We tried to teach my dad to sing the "I'm the Map" song from Dora the Explorer, but he wasn't going for it. We'll keep working on that one though, I mean, the man could have his own theme song!

Haley and "Map"

How was your 4th?

Pittsburgh highlights

So, I'm finally posting pictures from our week-long trip to Pittsburgh - and what a fun (and tiring) trip it was!

It's a 12 hour drive from Tennessee to Pittsburgh, and I don't have to tell you what 12 hours in the car can do to a toddler, or to me for that matter. I now have the entire soundtrack to Rapunzel memorized, and I got really good at morphing into a body pillow for my sleeping toddler while  using my toes to give my son his blankie. By the time we made it to our halfway point to stay in a hotel, I practically flung myself out of the car and hugged the ground.

The trip was primarily to celebrate Pat's grandmother's 80th birthday, but we managed to fit a ton of fun stuff in while we were there. And by the way, for a couple with no family around, it was SO nice to know we had someone to watch the kids for FREE anytime we wanted to get away for some child-free dinners (I know, foreign concept).

Pat and I broke away one night and had dinner at an old church that was converted into a brewery/restaurant complete with stained glass windows. It was called The Church Brewery, but I just kept calling it "Beer Church." This place was amazing, they actually had the giant machine they brew the beer in where the pulpit used to be.

They had awesome pizza, and a very.....interesting...beer sampler. I learned the different between a "hoppy" and a "malty" beer. I couldn't tell you what that difference is now, but I can tell you that I don't enjoy "hoppy" beer. It tasted like drinking a glass of potpourri. I did have a taste of their coconut lager though, and it was delish!

On another day, we made a trip with some of the family, including Haley's cousin, Avalene, to the Children's Museum. I think the girls loved it there so much because it's a giant house where making a mess is highly encouraged.

Of course she loved the water room where she could pour water from one thing into another (her current favorite activity). They also had a place where you could build your own foam boat and float it down a "river," but she was too busy pouring water. I mean, it's not like you can do that at home or anything...

Another room in the museum had this arrangement of sand tables where kids could draw pictures in the sand (and make more messes that I don't have to clean up, yay!)

And they had a giant Light Brite! How cool would it be to make one of the walls in your house a giant Light Brite? 

Near the end of our trip, we went to a farm where Haley saw some farm animals (which are apparently much more frightening in person than in a book). Haley's fine with goats in a picture, but when they're 3 feet away (and in a pen no less) they become child eating monsters. We left the petting zoo area pretty quickly.

Haley and I climbed into tiny playhouses instead.

They were much harder to climb out of than they were to climb into.



There were some other eventful times during our stay. For a couple days, Haley came down with some random fever that made her cling to us like a spider monkey (not so fun when you're in an amusement park). Another time, we went downtown to an expensive chocolate shop and I turned around to see my daughter with a whole package of (unopened) cherry liqueurs in her mouth. When I went to buy them with my credit card (because who carries cash anyway??) they had a $10 minimum for cards, so I ended up buying $12 worth of chocolate I didn't plan on buying (which I suppose I shouldn't be whining about because hey, it's chocolate). I'm starting to believe one of the store's employees shoved the package of chocolate in my daughter's mouth so we'd have to buy it. Maybe I should be thanking them.

Oh, and I did go to the same store, LOOM, where I found THIS fabric and picked up a few things...ok, a lot of things...

Check out the peacock fabric! I'm thinking it would make a really cute shirt, or maybe a skirt? Anyone want to throw any ideas my way?

Fun fact:  I've never used a clothing pattern before (aside from the ones I make myself). They scare me for some reason. I'm sure patterns would make my life a heck of a lot easier.


The coffee cup fabric I had to have because of my (slight) coffee addiction, and because I love the retro feel. But I'm a little worried the print might look a little juvanile on me - thoughts?

When I saw the last print on the right, I had to have it....but I was unsure of what to do with it until I saw THIS tutorial for a 20-minute Grocery Bag Holder on Craftiness is Not Optional - perfect! Especially since my grocery bags are all balled up in piles in my cupboard.

On the road again

Today, we're off to visit family in Pittsburgh and celebrate the 80th birthday of Pat's grandma, so posts may be a little spotty until I get back.

Not gonna lie, I hate that 12 hour drive. It's a lot to take with 2 small children. But it's worth it. Because I plan on sleeping in, rummaging through my sister-in-laws hand-me-downs for "new" clothes, and eating my way through Pittsburgh.

Including Primanti Brothers, DeLuca's, Campiti's Pizza (best subs I've ever had), Tessaro's, Quaker Steak and Lube, and enough fried fair food to increase my blood pressure a decent amount. Oh, and I also plan on eating a lot of this:

(Clem's - BEST ribs I've ever had. And yes, I'm aware I live in a major BBQ city and these are from Pennsylvania. I still stand on my claim.)

Maybe I need to pack my old maternity pants?

A visit from an old friend

Whew! Where did September go?? I feel like I blinked and it was October already! September was a great month of visiting family, garage saling, preparing for #2, and more recently, a visit from my best friend and her son Nate - who has grown up way too quickly if you ask me.

Chrissy and I have been friends since we were 17 and 18. We've been through a lot together, but besides all of the history we've shared, one of the biggest things that has kept us so close is our sense of humor. Chrissy is the only person I know who is as weird as me, and yes I mean that as a compliment. Don't get me wrong, my husband is pretty weird too (love you!) but Chrissy and I take our weird humor to a different level. Once when we were younger, we dressed up in my brother's clothes and walked around Wal-Mart looking like thugs. Yes, we were 18, old enough to know better. Another time, we smuggled Chrissy's cat into Wal-Mart in my sweatshirt, just to see if we could get away with it. We did. We did a lot of stuff at Wal-Mart apparently, which included digging through the bargain movie bin for treasures like "The Never Ending Story 2." By the way, there's a reason that movie is in the bargain bin.

Chrissy is also the only other person I know who holds a conversation by talking about whatever comes to mind in rapid successtion - regardless of whether the topics relate or not. From the time I picked Chrissy and Nate up from the airport until we got back to my house half an hour later, we had covered everything from Jersey Shore to church and raising children. Believe me, there are few people in the world that can understand the link between those 3 topics easily.

I had a great time while Chrissy and Nate were here, it was just nice catching up face-to-face instead of talking over the phone states apart.


We went to the zoo...


...and saw a panda who conveniently decided it was nap time while we were there.


We played some football...


...blew bubbles...


...and Nate even pretended to tolerate Haley (not something easy for an only child to do.)


Even though Chrissy and I are both much older now and have kids of our own, there's still a lot that has stayed the same. I guess us weirdos have to stick together, right?