Halloween Festivities

Just wanted to share some pictures of the girls from Halloween. EM looked so darn cute in her bumble bee costume, and she surprisingly kept on her antenna headband the majority of the time. 

she loves her sunglasses!

They had a parade at her daycare but the teacher said it was too hard with the toddlers so they just watched and then they had a little halloween party for the kids. Since it was after nap time they had already changed them out of their costumes so I was a little disappointed when I went to pick her up and be there for the party that they were already in normal clothes. Her teacher said she took pics of the kids in their costumes too so I'm waiting to see those!

 After school, EM painted a pumpkin (and some paper and her feet too!) By the way Crayola washable paint is awesome! I highly recommend it, comes out of clothes completely! 

We then took her to the local Publix where she Trick or Treated between the different departments to kind of show her what it was like. She seemed to really enjoy that, so I was excited to take her out once we got home.

EM absolutely LOVED trick or treating. I thought she'd only be into it for a few houses so I went with some neighbor friends while G stayed at our house with his parents (since we live down the street from each other we decided to pass out candy together to make it more fun) and passed out candy to the kids and drinks to the parents.  Well, had I known she was going to want to do like 20+ houses I would have brought her stroller, I thought for sure she would have been over it by like the 5th house, but NOPE, she LOVED it. She probably would have kept going but she was a little slow walking between houses so I'd pick her up and "fly" her to the next house to keep up with the other, older, faster, kids in our group. After about half our neighborhood loop, my arms were getting tired and her bucket was full so I brought her home - she probably walked a good half mile! She said thank you to almost every treat giver and kind of said "trick or treat" to a few of them. When there was a line of kids at some of the houses, she stood in line and waited her turn. It was so, so, so cute how she got so into it!

walking with her Nanny before we met up with friends

EM and her buddy Charlie

AB stayed home and helped pass out candy (aka - slept during the festivities). She went as a "newborn" in her "First Halloween" onesie - so unique I know ;) 

working hard passing out candy

night time bottle with her adorable ghost hat from one of our neighbors

Hope everyone had a safe and happy halloween, I know we sure did!

Five on Friday

It's that time again, FIVE ON FRIDAY!

(UNO) I went to Mexico last weekend on a cruise so felt like counting in Spanish. The cruise was as great of a time as EM's first cruise (same ship, went to same place in Cozumel, most of the same people) This time though, I made $25 in the casino and my Gram came too! Just a few pics from our fun weekend cruise: 

if you look closely, you can see her pig tails!

EM and Great Gram

EM and Auntie Danielle

(DOS) My sister and her husband finally announced their pregnancy on Facebook so I can finally blog about it! I've known since the day she found out and have been bursting with joy for them! I'm so excited for them. They are going to be amazing parents! They are due in July and I can't wait to have another little niece or nephew (and a cousin for EM)! The announcement that they posted on Christmas Day and was too cute: 

(TRES) We hosted our first ever Christmas Eve party. Remember how I was complaining about doing the Holiday Shuffle? Well this Christmas was stress-free and enjoyable! The party went great! We had a very exciting White Elephant Gift Exchange (with lots of steals and frozen items) and even got my Gram to do a shot of jäger (she doesn't ever drink). I do wish we took some more pics though but otherwise I think everyone had a great time! Christmas morning, just the 3 of us got up and did gifts, EM seemed to enjoy it as much as I was expecting for a 13 month old. (Paper was more exciting than the gifts). We got her a Disney monopoly game (well we were buying it regardless for her when she's older but made it "for her" so there would be more gifts under the tree and she doesn't know the difference) so G and I played after presents (I won, we played again last night and I won again, woohoo!) and then my inlaws came over to exchange gifts with us. We finished the morning/afternoon with watching the Tim Allen Santa Claus movies. We then went to his parents for dinner since they live down the street and had a wonderful ham dinner. We called it a night early and watched more movies, ELF! :) My siblings (or at least my brother) and I used to play monopoly often on Christmas so it was kind of nice to be playing it again, even if it wasn't with them. We'll be celebrating Christmas with my siblings and my parents on Saturday! 

(QUATRO) I went after Christmas Shopping Thursday morning and got some great deals! I'm sure if I would have went out even earlier I could have gotten more but by 9:30 the stores had some stuff but not a huge selection and were dead (no people, no lines) I was shocked. I always thought it was supposed to be crazy the day after Christmas!  Everyone else I talked to said their stores were crazy busy, I must have gotten lucky. Here are just a few of the great deals I got I won't bore you with all of them (got a TON of lights since we're definitely decorating the outside next year and our fence) 

From Bealls (a Florida Store): 3 outfits for EM plus her next year Christmas PJ's, a Christmas Frame and a set of  Sparkly Presents that I feel will look cute next to put tree next year all for $38! I'm pretty sure the sparkly presents was only supposed to be a set of 3 but they weren't marked well so the lady said to take them all as a set. Score!

From Kirklands: 3 framed Christmas pictures (I plan to hang two of them in place of our normal pictures in our "Christmas Tree" room during the holidays - and one somewhere else,just not sure yet) and the 3 presents are metal and have stands so thinking all I'll put those out front of the front door next year. All for $22!

From Target: this was the only outdoor decoration left when I got there around 10:30am besides wreaths - it was still $30 but way better than full price! Will go nicely next to our light up rattan reindeer (which we haven't put outside yet since we didn't have anything else to go with it) 

From Old Navy: Got these two adorable shirts (for next year) and 3 pairs of socks for around $11. 

(CINCO) My best friend Kelly stopped bye today on her way home from her parents on her way back to Boca. I love that I live right off the turnpike so that I'm an easy stop and I get to see her on her trips! I haven't seen her since October when we did DATW and it was great to be able to spend a few hours catching up with her!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I'll be catching up over the next few days but until then wanted to post a few of my favorite Christmas Pictures from today plus our Christmas Card! It's a picture of the card so I apologize for the poor quality. 

good morning sleepy head

And one from Monday when she met Santa: 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow blog readers! I'm thankful for so much, not just today, but every day! Hope everyone has a great thanksgiving!!

I got most of my Christmas Shopping done yesterday via Amazon.com and Target.com. As much as I love a good deal, I love the convienince of online shopping. I do a little online price comparison and hit check out! Plus, Amazon is offering an additional 5% back on my chase card this quarter so that makes it a little more of an incentive to avoid Black Friday madness (and they have their own Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales which I obviously didn't wait for). And I always gets 5% off and free shipping at Target with my RedCard sooo that makes me a big Target shopper too! 

I totally haven't been running much at all lately and with the Space Coast Half Marathon on Sunday, I'm totally going to regret that when I can barely move on Monday. And then another half marathon 6 days later, what was I thinking? (Oh yes, I remember - super cool medals!)

Last night we played this game Partini over at my in-laws, it was a blast! We played for hours! We then started monopoly (Millennium Edition) but I quit at 1 am as I was super tired. I was losing anyways but regardless I love game nights! (we weren't planning on games but G suggested it and we all went along with it) Maybe we'll make this a Thanksgiving Eve tradition :)

Random Wednesday

I took a look at our Christmas List (those that we are buying for) and yep, we only have ONE person completed. Time to get shopping! (and NOT black Friday shopping, hopefully I can get most on Amazon and/or at Target )

Last year we bought EM like one or two things because we “had” to get her something since it was her first Christmas at 5 weeks old. Well this year, she still isn’t going to know what is going on and she just got spoiled on her birthday and I know the family will spoil her on Christmas so I don’t feel the need to really get her much (let’s be honest, she’ll enjoy the wrapping/tissue paper more than the gifts anyways). We already got her Christmas PJs (a new tradition we started last year, it’ll be the one gift we all open on Christmas Eve each year) and that is all. I was discussing this with my friend Katie(who has an awesome beauty products blog – check it out!) and she told me about an idea her sister was doing with her niece that she found on a blog (Katie doesn’t have any kids yet, although I’m dying for the day she tells me she is pregnant!). I thought it was a very cute idea and I think it is perfect! You pretty much get 4 gifts (Plus stocking stuffers, which I still think EM is too young to really enjoy, so maybe we’ll start those next year): something they WANT, something they NEED, something to WEAR (check!), and something to READ. The blog talks about how they have since expanded to: something to WATCH, something for DRESS UP, something to LISTEN TO, something to EAT and something to CREATE; and I love that idea, especially for the younger kids. I’m not going to say in the future we won’t go crazy with gift buying for EM and future children (I’m sure we will!), but I’d like to at least use these categories in the future. I think it will help prevent us from going TOO overboard in the future since I know our families will. This is a picture from last year at 5 weeks old (only two of those gifts were from us) – some of the thing she still isn’t old enough for! (also not pictured is Elf on the Shelf) 

DEAL ALERT: Now through 11/30/13 you can get a FREE 8x10 at Walgreens.com(CODE: TURKEY8X10) – Of course I get the email the day after I pick up my 8x10,  but at least I had a 50% off coupon code for that one. (50% off all orders $10+ with CODE: HOLIDAY50 – valid through11/30/13)

What do you do about Christmas Gifts for kids? Do you put a limit on quantity of gifts per child (i.e. each child gets 5 items to open) Dollar value per kid? Just buy whatever? A big family gift? Don’t buy gifts at all?

Holiday Shuffle

On the radio this morning they were talking about what different people do for the holidays - do you rotate holidays? Do you visit multiple houses in one day? Do you jump ship and vacation on the holidays to avoid the hassle? This is what I call the holiday shuffle.

Prior to having EM, if my memory serves me correctly we had been kind of rotating Easter and Thanksgiving with Easter w/G's family (or not at all since when it's his family's holiday it's his choice if we attend or not and he usually chooses to skip since he hates holiday food) and then Thanksgiving with my family. We then would do Christmas Eve at G's family annual party and go to my parents/brothers (whoever was hosting) on Christmas Day. As much as I love being wih family on the holidays it always stressed me out. Trying to make it fair between the two families was always hard since they both want to see us. I actually came to dread the holidays (mostly Christmas - which is typically my favorite holiday) because of having to make all the drives and shuffling between families. I could never fully relax and with both families kind of near by (at the time my inlaws were about 15 mins away and my parents/brother were almost 2 hrs away) it wouldn't make sense (or make anyone happy) to rotate between YEARs. I always ended up having a good time with both families and like I said I loved spending time with them but after our 2nd year of doing so G and I both told our families that once we had kids, things were going to change. We said that we were no longer going to travel for Christmas and that we wanted to start our own traditions. We hadn't really discussed Thanksgiving or Easter though, but we figured that out now.

So once we had EM we were excited for the new holiday changes. Having EM a week before Thankagiving last year it only made sense that we were going to stay home with our one week old. We celebrated Christmas with my family a few days before Christmas and that was going to be our new thing. My mom said as long as she could have everyone at her house for a nice meal and present opening she was happy. We ended up going to his parents Christmas Eve party since there was no reason to sit at home alone but said going forward we would be hosting the Christmas Eve party (just with a 6 wk old this year it wasn't feasible). Christmas Day, we woke up and did Christmas morning with our new little family of 3 and told the families they could stop bye if they wanted to but we weren't hosting anything other than an open front door. Last year we moved about 45 mins away from G's parents and they did come over for a few on Christmas day. Since we already celebrated with my family earlier that week, they spent it with my brother's family. It worked out very nicely. So that was last year.

When Easter came around, we were still getting settled into our new house/new baby routine and decided to skip it all together but made the plan that going forward we would spend Thanksgiving with G's family (who now live down the block) and Easter with my family. I figured Easter was more fun for kids with egg hunts and baskets so it would be more fun for EM to be with her cousins on Easter than Thanksgiving. 

So that brings us to the current holiday season. We are going to G's parents for Thanksgiving Dinner and going to the UCF vs. USF game on Black Friday!  

For Christmas, we are hosting a Christmas Eve party and then Christmas Day we are holding true to our plan of spending the morning just us and the door is open for anyone who wants to pop bye. Because of vacations and such, my Mom isn't getting her "early Christmas Day" but she'll be with all of us on a cruise from December 19-23 so I think she'll be happy with that and then of course coming over on Christmas Eve. Other than getting back from a cruise the day before hosting a party and the normal party planning stress that comes with that, I can honestly say I'm completely looking forward to the entire holiday season this year!! 

What are your plans for the holidays? Do you do a holiday shuffle? 

And just because a post isn't complete without a picture, here is our little family from Christmas last year and then one from our Christmas shoot this year! (Not the one that is on our Christmas card since those only went out today and I want it to kind of be a surprise for those who haven't stalked my FB yet) 

Thursday Thoughts

It's UCF game day! Of course we're out here tailgating but since we can't officially start for a few more minutes figured I'd make a quick post :)

We started decorating for Christmas on Sunday night and finished on Monday night. We knew we wouldn't have much time after that to do it and since we aren't hosting Thanksgiving we decided to decorate away. We put on some Christmas music and Em "sang" along as we decorated the tree. It was so cute! I should have recorded it! We got a bunch of decorations for Christmas gifts last year (that's what I told my mom I wanted)  so I was happy to put them up, but we still need more. There are still a few more that need to go outside but am happy to have some more than we did last year! We also decided to not start our Elf of the Shelf until next year when Em can name it and really get into it. We also just acquired a new curio cabinet which is housing some decorations now as well, not sure what we'll put in it once Cheistmas is over though.

EM had her 12 month check up this morning and had to get 4 shots and a finger prick for an iron check. Her iron came back fine and she took her shots like a champ like usual. She is now 18 lbs 10.5 oz (still only in the 25th percentile) but she grew just a tad over 2 inches so her height us now in the 25th percentile too (it was in like 15th I think). Everything looks good with her although the Dr was a little concerned about her rattle in her chest and congestion/coughing so we had to get a chest x-ray to just make sure everything was ok. She did good during the x-ray but are atill waiting for the results but I'm pretty sure she just has a little cold and combined with teething it's causing more mucus but I guess we'll see in a few days. 

Tomorrow, G and I (and our friend Tommy) are heading out on a weekend cruise to the Bahamas, a little pre-cruise before the Allure in a few weeks! Can't freaking wait for the Allure, that ship looks amazing!! 

Well, time to crack a beer and then cheer on my Knights in a few hours! Go UCF Knights! #chargeon #BeatRutgers

Any fun weekend plans? Have you decorated for Christmas yet? Would love to hear from you!

EM's 1st Birthday Party

Saturday was EM’s 1^st Birthday and her Birthday Party. As I mentioned before, we went all out with the invite list and ended up with 51 adults and 13 babies/kids (including us), so a few no-shows/last minute cancellations (which I’m ok with last minute cancellations, I understand things come up/people get sick, but I really think no-shows are kind of rude, at least shoot over a text and say something has come up). But anyways, it doesn’t really matter, everyone had a great time! A special thanks to my mom for making the appetizers and my in-laws for making the main course and sides! It saved me a ton of time/stress with the prep work! I seriously have the most awesome parents and in-laws. Not too many people can say that about their in-laws! My parents and Grandma came over early to help me set up and run a few last minute errands (like picking up the cakes/ice/etc.) So that too was great! Anyways, on to the party recap..  I had gotten a bounce house since there were a bunch of kids coming, for the most part the weather held out (we had to dry it off after a short morning sprinkle but after that it was good to go). It got used the entire party! Even after the party ended, a few of us adults went in there and bounced around. Man that thing is a work out! We had wayyyy too much food and cake so my coworkers benefited with the leftovers on Monday. EM’s cake smash was by far the most epic cake smash ever! We were asked several times if we practiced (we didn’t) and were told they’ve never seen a baby get so into it. She was a complete mess and got the most public bath of her life in the kitchen sink after the smashing. My floors and area rug were covered in cake and icing (not to self: with next child, we do it outside!). Most babies sleep during part of their birthday parties, not mine. She was passed around and loved on by so many people. She never once whined and even enjoyed the bounce house! Overall, it was a successful party and I think everyone can agree it was a good time! We had a “you know you’re getting old when…” moment that evening. “You know you are getting old when: the party is cleaned up (for the most part), dishwasher is going, and the first toy is put together, and it’s not even 9pm”.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures of the party, I made a few collages so that I didn’t clog the whole post with pictures .

Smash Cake Time

Just a few of my favorites!

Bounce house fun!

Look at her adoring her Nan, meeting little Keaton for the first time and she even shared her birthday with her Paca (my dad) and got him a cookie cake to celebrate! Lots of smiles!

and what you all have been waiting for... the EPIC CAKE SMASH!

(the long video wouldn't post but here is the snapshot where she threw it haha)

I can't believe I have a one year old!! This has been one amazing year!