Merry Christmas

From our home

             to yours....

Tagged by Jess

I am supposed to post the 6th picture on my 6th page of Flikr, but since I don't have Flikr I am posting my 6th picture on my 6th roll in IPhoto. 

This is my brother-in-law Brian and my two daughters. I assume Megan is taking the picture, as this was the first night Ted and I went out and they watched the girls for us. This was the first night they hooked us up and the favor of a date night out is always appreciated and they have yet to turn us down.  

My hero

I am very, very happy (more like ecstatic) to report that my husband captured the squirrel! We all awoke on Wednesday to quite the clatter in the attic and though Elle briefly thought it was Santa and his reindeer on our roof, her daddy realized he had won the battle!

 

Ted: 1 Squirrel: 0

Ahhh December...

Ok, Ok, Ok… I have been a huge blogging flake and really have no excuse other than laziness. Surprisingly, this December has not been that busy for us but now that Christmas is a little over a week away things are getting crazy.

A bit of a photo essay and some highlights of the month so far…

We’ve decked our halls both inside and out...

we’ve been enjoying light hunts on our trips around town,

 much to Elle’s dismay Alvin and the Chipmunks were not in our tree...

 we have a squirrel in our attic that has the girls in our home (Cali and Abby included) terrified and poor Ted just frustrated as the animal stubbornly won’t take the bait in our humane trap so we can set it free, 

we've had lots of fun playdates with Elle's favorite being the bounce house...

we had our first snow... & looks like there will be lots more in the next week...

we headed into the city for our annual trip to see the tree and it was so fun that we are heading back again this weekend...

and finally Elle and I are in potty training hell… I am determined to have it done by 2009 and though she has had some success overall it has been a struggle.

Maybe my mom has the magic trick, as my folks are heading East again for the holidays and will be arriving just before the stroke of midnight Christmas on Santa’s sleigh via Newark, NJ.

Thanksgiving

I know it is a week late but we had a fantastic holiday! Jimmy, Elizabeth and the kids came out and now I can happily say I have a memory with each member of my family in my own home and that is what I am most thankful for this year. While the week with them was more relaxing than entertaining, I am so happy that they all got a glimpse into our life here in Connecticut.

Some highlights from the visit are….they hit up NYC for a few days and realized there is never enough time to do it all, Ted deep fried his first turkey which by all accounts was delicious, we ended up at McDonalds after a failed attempt at lunch at “not so friendly Friendly’s”, showed them Yale, hit up Pepe’s famous pizza in New Haven and discovered some yummy canolis down the street, had an unsuccessful trip to the carousel but happily stumbled upon a cool Christmas light display which saved the day, checked out the Clark W. Griswold house down the street from ours, took the kids on tractor rides (as they are convinced our acre corner lot means that we live on a farm), set up our yard inflatable which also inspired John to promptly head to Lowes to buy two when they got home, watched Ted break his remote control truck about 25 times, I had a full circle moment when I took Caroline to get her ears pierced for her 12th birthday (which is today HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLINE), lots of bonding with Cali who has been more depressed than me since they left, I am pretty sure Abby (our very moody cat) bit or scratched each one of them at some point and the only real bummer was that though they all wished for snow they missed it by about 12 hours. Kassidy and Elle loved having their cousins to play with!

It was a very nice visit and I am beyond happy they finally made it east. I will miss them as always and though it will never be soon enough, I can not wait to see them all again.

All done

Our girls competed for the last time this year and it was truly bittersweet. It was the best I’ve ever seen them do as a squad and we can not be prouder of them. They came up a little short though and won’t be heading to Nationals in Florida. They placed 4th out of the 7 squads and though I’d never share this with them, politics probably determined the results more than actual skill.

We have yet to decide if this will be our last year with the Elks, as Kassidy starts high school next year and may be cheerleading there. Time will tell, but in the interim we have our weekends back and I am sure Kassidy will be bored in less than a week. If you have a Facebook account you can Check them out here!

Date Night

I was lucky enough to spend my Friday night with my honey. Of course he took me to see Twilight and I loved it. It was awesome & he even liked it. 

Elegant Elle

Even though things are super stressful right now and I was sure that I would spend my day obsessing on my car breaking down for the third time in a month and the roof leaking over our addition, I was pleasantly surprised that I did not. I had a great time with this wonderful girl and we played and danced the day away. It was fantastic!

Obsession

My parents blessed me with their love of reading and when I find a good book I can not put it down.
Last Wednesday I decided to see what the hype was all about and I picked up Twilight, the first of four books in the series. I knew it was about vampires and I was certain that I’d hate it and even was irritated at forking over the ten bucks to buy it when I was sure I couldn’t get through it. Little did I know…?
Obsessed does not seem to cover what these books have done to me. I am infatuated, I can not get enough of these characters and I have been completely neglecting my family as I immerse myself further into their stories.
To give you an idea of how deep I am involved, it is now Thursday and I have finished three of the four books and am 535 pages into the fourth. As Kassidy keeps pointing out I have read 2,327 pages in 7 days and I will most certainly finish the last 233 pages of Breaking Dawn tonight. I already have tickets to see the movie opening night.
Weirdly, I don’t want to finish the last book because then I won’t have another to go on to. I am actually depressed thinking about it.
I could go on and on about these books, but I don’t want to reveal too much of my neurosis. Obviously, I highly recommend these books and can not wait to read them over and over again.

And the cheer goes on

As promised here is the skinny on Kassidy's cheer squad.

 

We competed in Massachusetts two weekends ago against four other squads with  the top two squads advancing to the New England Regional competition later this month.

Our girls had a rough week before the big competition and their performance was obviously affected...

5 days before competition we lost one our cheer dads in a tragic car accident which still has us reeling, the day before and day of the competition half the squad came down with the flu and then during competition one of our girls had a "slip of the tongue" when she almost messed up her scorpion and dropped an f-bomb right in front of the judges. (Ted and I found it hysterical but NEPW frowns upon profanity, who knew?)

Needless to say it wasn't our best hour and we placed third. We've spent the last week accepting our loss, comforting our girls and wrapping up the season, but today our girls were given a second chance. The head of NEPW called and invited our squad to compete on the 22nd for a chance to head to Nationals in Florida. She told our coach they  wanted the best of NE represented and that means us!!!!!

Now it is off to Boston for more cheer and hopefully on to Florida in December. I'll keep you posted. 

My civic duty

I can not remember the gifts that I got on the day that I turned 18 or exactly how I celebrated (I am pretty sure a trip was made to Tijuana) but I do remember that my parents made me register to vote. My parents are from the 60's generation and they believed they could change the world and thankfully they did. They instilled this in me and today I stepped into the voting booth and believed that I too could change the world.  

 And though we have very differing opinions, Ted and I took our girls with us and we voted together. We told them, just as my parents told me, that this was our right and duty as Americans and people die trying to get the right to vote all over the world.

I left feeling hopeful and content & Elle greeted the people filing in with a "Go Obama" & it was awesome! 

Trick or Treat

Halloween was a huge success in our house this year. 

Elle loves going door to door to collect her candy and I am quite certain she will expect candy on our afternoon walks for months to come. 

Kassidy hit the streets unattended for the first time with her friends and "had the best Halloween ever!"

& of course Ted thoroughly enjoyed his favorite holiday and hosted most of the neighborhood at a bonfire while terrorizing unsuspecting trick or treaters.

One Busy Week

We had one busy week and this week isn't shaping up to be anything less...

On Monday we had a surprise visitor from home (aka California) and it was a much needed fix to lessen my homesickness. My pseudo brother Gene (Jimmy's best friend from his college days at UCLA) came to NYC to celebrate his 40th and he hopped a train to have dinner with little us. The girls had a blast with him and so did we. 

Preparations for the qualifier competition this coming weekend meant more cheerleading with almost no complaining by Shoosh as she has her eye on the prize, Nationals in Florida in December. I will post next week to let you all know how they do. Keep your fingers crossed. 

We wrapped up the week with our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. Elle was not quite her happy self at first and didn't enjoy everything the patch had to offer, but she finally warmed up to it and the trip was a success. 

Ted was his funny self...

& Elle had fun in the corn maze even though she kept getting lost..

& Kassidy is still complaining that I wouldn't actually buy anything but the sugar pumpkins from the patch and have gone to the market to get 3 pumpkins for $15 instead of the $30 for one there. She'll get it someday, I can only hope. 

Overall it was another great week and today was just the best! 

Playdate Wednesday

When I was pregnant with Elle Ted and I took one of those prenatal classes at our hospital. We didn't really use the info from the class, but we met some great couples. I have been getting together with one gal and her daughter (Carla & Bella) almost every Wednesday since Elle was about 4 weeks old. It has been awesome to watch our girls grow up together and great to find a much needed friend in Connecticut. 

Last week we headed to the zoo on one of the last nice fall days & as always the girls had a great time!

Today we both were a little stir crazy so we decided to go to the mall. I even let down my germ guard and we let the kids play in the play yard, ride the little coin operated rides and visit the pet store. After they hit the road, Elle and I went to Borders and picked out some Halloween books. 

It was one of those perfect days that makes me love being a Mommy. 

State Champions!

Our weekend began with this...

Yes, it is as cute as it looks & even though Ellie is still getting used to it she loves it. 

Straight from dance class we headed over to the Connecticut State Cheer Competition...

  Kassidy opened the competition by beautifully singing the National Anthem 

Her squad's hard work and all that practice finally paid off 

& they won! They are our Connecticut State Champions for the 3rd year! 

Once upon a time

Ten years ago I moved 3,000 miles away from home to start my life in Connecticut and follow my dreams. This journey has been amazing, but when I left a tiny piece of me stayed with them... 

Thankfully the day I moved here my dreams became reality and I became a Mommy to this amazing little girl and though technically I am a "step" I consider her mine all the same. 

Six years ago on Sunday I realized more of my dreams  and I became a Mrs on an enchanted October evening under a romantic desert sky.

And then two years ago our family grew and I became a Mommy again to this fascinating little girl and some more of my dreams came true.