Catch up!

Things have been busy, busy at our house and I know I've been a terrible blogger.  Now that the students are gone and my summer schedule had started I should have more time to blog :-).

Here are some pictures from my phone for the last few months.  

Brock and I took a trip to NYC to watch Mary Poppins in Broadway! Here we are in Toys r Us in Times Square.  He always loved that dinosaur when he was little.  This time he wasn't too thrilled-ha!  But at least he let me take his picture!

We celebrated Ava's 11th bday with lunch at Brooks with friends.

I love this picture of Ava and Eliza from Ava's bday lunch :-)

I had a craft night with my friends and we made peep wreaths for Easter!

We put a basketball court up in our yard and Brock and Ava have been loving it!

I painted the shelves in our office white.  Love how they tuned out!  I'm not crazy about the giant black frame I'm looking for another one to replace it!

Ava had her last ballet recital.  She has decided to do sports next year and not dance
 :-(. She's SO happy so I'm trying to be supportive.

My Dad went to Disney and brought B and A these cute shirts.

Little League in our town dedicated its season to Graig.  We went to the ceremony on little league opening day and Graig threw out the first pitch!

Our nephew Gabe and his Mom and Dad  visited from Colorado.

During their visit grandma Jan took her three daughter in laws out to dinner.

 

Graig and I went to a fundraising dinner for the YMCA.

                                        I'm in a running group and we did a run to support Boston.  

My friend Melany and I just got back from Portland, OR!  We went to a fabric and quilting convention.  It was SO fun and there were so many beautiful fabrics.  I will post pics from our adventure tomorrow!

Catch up!

It has been super busy in our house lately.  We've been doing fun stuff but I feel like we are always on the go. I am ready for a quiet night at home!

I thought I would post some pictures of some things that we have been up to lately. 

First of all this adorable picture of Ainsley is from today.   She had some tests done and had to be put under.  My sister Shelby texted me this picture when they got to the hospital today.  The nurse gave Ainsley's baby doll a hospital bracelet too.  I thought that was so cute.  My sister said things went really well today and I'm sure she will put a full report on her blog. 

I ordered this adorable pouf from Esty.  I saw a cute one like it in my friend Melany's shop and I have wanted one ever since.  I found a Etsy seller to make it for me.  I bought the fabric at Melany's and sent it to the Etsy seller.  It took a few weeks but it was worth it!  Ava loves to sit on it and watch TV. 

A few weeks ago I went out with my friends for a girls night out.  Here is a picture of all of us from our fun night out!  I am so thankful for these ladies!

Graig finally joined the 21st century and got an iPhone.  I was looking through his pictures the other day and 90% of his pictures are of our dogs.  He has a couple of me and the kids but a majority of them are of the dogs.  Here are two that I got from his phone. 

Speaking of Graig we celebrated his 41st b-day on Jan. 20.  He wanted a chocolate creme pie and Ava loaded it up with all the birthday candles that we had!

Graig and I have been to a lot of basketball games this month.  Here is a picture of Ava from her last game.  Brock's last JV game is Thursday night.  Ava still has a few weeks of her season left. 

Happy Tuesday!

Weekend fun!

Friday night Ava and I went to a Mom and Me sewing class at my friend Melany's store.  At the class we learned how to make a pillow case.   It was a fun night. 

Here is Ava's finished product on her bed.  I think it turned out really cute!

Saturday morning Ava had her first basketball game!  Graig is her coach and her Grandpa Larry is the assistant Coach.  This is the only picture that I got of Ava at the game.  She is so proud of her uniform!

Saturday afternoon some friends and I met to make scarves.  Here we are in our finished scarves 

Saturday night I want to watch Les Mis with some friends and then we took our friend Heidi out for a drink.  Heidi's father passed away on December 28 and she has been busy all week planning the funeral with her Mom and getting her Dad's affairs in order so she needed a fun night out.  I think she had a good time!

Sunday evening our friends Dan and Jenn came over with their kids.  Brock and Ava call these kids their "cousins" because we see them so much.  Ava, Marty, Marshall and Henry had so much fun playing at our house. 

New Year's Bling Party

My friend Sabrina (on the right in the picture below) has just started selling Chloe and Isabel jewelry. Last night I hosted a party for her so she could show off her fabulous jewelry. 

Sabrina decorated the table with all of her jewelry.  She did a great job arranging it and people just went around and tried things on.  I loved the way she set it all up. 

At the end of the party I realized that I didn't take any pictures of our delicious food.  I made  Kelly's Taco Soup and these corn muffins to go with it.  I printed the little food labels from the same adorable blog as my new year's subway art sign.  I need to find that blog again!

I used a lot of platters and plates at my party.  I love this beautiful  silver

tray that I got a few years ago :)

This isn't the best picture but Sabina gave me this beautiful necklace last night.  She knows I love all things monogrammed :)  It was my Christmas present from her and I love it!

Tonight Ava and I are taking a Mom and Child sewing class at Melany's store. We are going to be making a pillowcase. Ava picked out the cutest pink, teal, and green chevron fabric.  She is SO excited to sew!

Happy Friday!

Happy New Years!

I have been the worst blogger lately!  I am going to do a post soon of our pictures from Thanksgiving to Christmas just so I can remember what we did.

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to be a more frequent blogger.  Our days are just SOOOO busy that blogging is usually at the bottom of my to-do list. 

We had a very relaxing Christmas break.  We spent the first few days with my sister and her family and my Dad in Ohio.  My sister wrote three posts about our trip on her blog.  so you can go there to see pictures of our fun trip.

Since I have done nothing but relax over the break yesterday I had to get in gear.   I spent 12 hours cleaning and organizing our house.  I took down all of our Christmas decorations, I also organized our basement (a task that I have been dreading for months!) and took loads and loads of stuff to the Salvation Army.

Clemsongirl does these fabulous breakfast tables for her kids for special days (back to school, Halloween, etc) and I thought it would be fun to try one.  Plus it was SO easy finding stuff in my newly organized basement. 

I made Brock and Ava french toast this morning to celebrate the first school/work day of the year.  They really enjoyed a hot breakfast (usually they just have cereal or bagels) and I really enjoyed our pretty table :)  I am also going to use this tomorrow at my Chloe and Isabel party.  My friend Sabrina just started selling their amazing jewelry!

I kept out some silver and gold Christmas balls to go along with my New Year's theme. 

Here is a close up of the subway printable.  I found it on pinterest but I don't remember what blog it's from. 

I also updated our hutch using all white milkglass and dishes.  I like the simplicity of white after all the colors of Christmas. 

In very sad news my good friend Heidi lost her father and Ava's BFF Anika lost her grandfather last Friday very unexpectedly.  He was shoveling snow and suffered a heart attack they took him in for surgery but sadly he didn't make it.  Please keep Heidi and your family in your prayers.  His funeral is tomorrow. 

Here is a picture of Heidi and I from earlier this fall. 

Fun weekend!

Here are some pics from my weekend.  Usually I have pictures of the kids but they didn't have a lot going on this weekend. Brock and Ava are starting their basketball seasons this week!  So I will have lots of pictures of them playing in the future :)

Last Friday I was asked to speak on an alumni panel Binghamton University where I went to grad school.  It was fun going back.  I was in a new program when I started (student affairs) so I was the oldest alumni on the panel :(   Jason, one of my former students attends grad school there so he was there!  Here we are with his friend Shannon after the panel.   I am SO proud of Jason he graduates in December and he has an on campus interview with Cornell University later this week. 

Saturday I went to an event called hops for hunger.  Basically we tasted all different kinds of home brewed beer and voted on our favorite.  I am not much of a beer drinker but it was fun to get together for an afternoon out with some friends. 

Sunday my friend Heidi and I drove to Albany for a 15k race. I have been sick for abut 2 weeks and because I was sick I missed our last training run last weekend.  So my goal for this race was to finish and not die on the course.

Here is a picture of our hot pink race shirts!  I love it!

I wrote the # of miles I have ran this year on my hand so I would  remember to trust my training and the preperation that I did for the race 

 and it helped me not to get nervous, scared or intimiated by faster runners. 

It was a chilly morning. I wore long pants and a jacket before the race. 

I finished in 1:47 which was 7 minutes faster than my other 15k this year! My friend Heidi finished 5 minutes ahead of me and her time was 7 minutes faster than her other 15k too!  Heidi took this picture of me right before I crossed the finish line. 

Happy Wednesday!

Ava on pointe!

Last week was watch week at Ava's ballet studio.  She is at the age where she HATES me to watch her dance.  She says it's embarrassing to have parents there and  that I make her nervous :(  I love watching her dance so I went anyway.  I had to go see her in pointe class.  Pointe is where you go up on your toes in ballet.  Her ballet teacher is very strict and she wants to make sure that the girls are ready and developed before they go on pointe because it could be bad for their little legs and feet if they aren't ready. I'm so thankful that she waits until they are ready to go on pointe. Ava is in the beginning pointe class this year and last week was the first time she went on pointe.  It was fun to get to see her in that class. 

Here is Ava going up for the first time :) 

Her teacher has them grip the bar until they are comfortable without it. 

Ava's teacher working with her feet. 

Ava's teacher is very strict and stern but she is a riot.  I am so glad that Ava finally "gets" her humor this year and isn't intimidated by her!  She told me that she loves her ballet teacher :)

In other big news Ava is starting to play basketball!  Graig is THRILLED!  He is going to be the coach of Ava's team and Ava's PaPa Larry is going to be the assistant coach.  Their basketball practices start next week :)  Happy weekend!