Wednesday, March 5, 2014

A year of Miss Charlotte

One of my favorite and most challenging things that I do each birthday is to come up with a photo from each month of the birthday child. It's always fun to see how much they have grown in a year. I print them out and hang them up at their birthday parties. My plan is to make a book for them when they are 18 of all the photos. 

 March 2013


 April 2013


 May 2013



 June 2013



 July 2013



 August 2013



 September 2013



 October 2013



 November 2013



 December 2013



 January 2014



 February 2014



Happy 2nd Birthday!

Monday, February 24, 2014

Sigh...

Being a mommy is rough some days. Today Charlotte turned 2 and while I am immensely grateful and delighted that I get to witness this adorable little ball of energy grow and learn and try new things, I am torn with the sad feeling that my "baby" is becoming a "big girl". I have had so many moments this year where I was happy and relieved to be done with a certain stage of childhood and in the same breath sad that we are leaving babyhood behind and moving along. The sadness is eased by the fact that Charlotte is such a fun little girl and every new thing she does is entertaining and exciting to witness. She talks SO MUCH which is fantastic because she is truly funny and also because we are better able to understand what she wants which has cut down on lots of frustration on her part and ours. She is so smart, surprising us frequently with things she can do. She is such a devoted little sister, following Anabelle around and mimicking all that she does and says. She has a sense of humor all of her own and loves to laugh and be silly and make others laugh. She is fiercely determined, independent, and unafraid in a way that makes John and I fearful for her teenage years. Lucky for me she is a cuddle-bug and I can still getaway with rocking her and she loves to be carried around and held, but in the back of my mind I can't help thinking "Better enjoy it while you can- your baby is growing up and fast!" You see now why I am so emotional :) Happy 2nd Birthday Charlotte, we love you so much! 



Saturday, February 1, 2014

Ice skating lessons for the young and not so young....

Anabelle and John continue to work hard at ice skating. They are both making great improvements after only 3 lessons! Today Anabelle did an awesome job playing pool noodle "hockey", her morale really improved after today's success. When she got off the ice she said, "Mom! I had fun even though I fell down!!"  The first few pictures are from last week, where she took some encouragement and a mid-lesson pep talk to keep with it. I only got a few pictures of her and John together during the warm-up skate time. The video was from today, where she must have finally gotten the hang of balancing and had a much better time. Please excuse my poor camera work I was holding a squirming Charlotte while filming :)  








Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Salt Lake City, Utah: Sundance Film Festival

Last weekend John and I took a fun trip to Salt Lake City, Utah to visit some friends and attend the Sundance Film Festival. We had a really great time getting to visit with Josh and Lisa and also see some sights. Salt Lake City is very nice, John and I both felt that it was very clean, quiet, and was a great size for a city while still being very accessible. There are also lots of great restaurants and bars to try out as well as shopping areas. Here are some of my pics from the weekend. 


You can't visit Salt Lake City without checking out the Morman Temple; whatever you believe it is undeniable that it is breathtaking inside and out. The artwork and architecture are very impressive! My pictures do not do it justice, and the Temple is much larger that you can tell from my photos. 





Walking around Salt Lake City we even saw a few pay phones, it's been quite a while since I've seen one of these!


Here we are right before our first movie: Blue Ruin, a revenge thriller. Despite having some blood and guts, it was very enjoyable. After the movie was a Q&A with the cast and director of the film, which was very cool.



Devin Ratray, Eve Plumb (Jan from the Brady Bunch), Jeremy Saulnier, Macon Blair


The next day we went to see Zip, Zap & the Marble Gang. I don't have any photos from this movie, but it was a good film. It's a childrens movie filmed in Spanish with subtitles, and has a very 80s "Goonies" feel to it. The Q&A was also entertaining to listen to. After that movie we headed down to Park City to walk around the main street and see some of the more crazy Sundance stuff. There were lots of people walking around and it was a strange thing to walk down the street looking at all of the people, wondering if you'll see someone from a movie or show you know, and at the same time knowing that they are doing the same to you. We stopped in front of the Egyptian Theatre to snap a few pictures.




Then we headed to a bar to have a few drinks and hang out before our next movie. After hanging out for a bit Josh noticed that Christina Hendricks was right behind us. We said hi and asked to snap a picture and next thing you know they are sitting right next to us (in Lisa's seat- she had gotten up to go to the bathroom) and sharing their chicken wings with us. Umm... I think John could have died and gone to Heaven ;)  Christina and her husband Geoffrey Arend were very nice and spent quite some time hanging out and chatting with us- especially Josh and Lisa. We were all star struck to say the least, and decided not to leave when it was time to get in line for our next movie!

After that excitement we turned our attention to Joseph Gordan Levitt, who had a group gathered to watch the premier of his new tv show in the room directly behind us. We were pretty close and had a great view, but with a window between us. So the closest I got to a photo with him was this (he's in the blue t-shirt behind me):


 Then Josh had the brilliant idea to type out a message on his phone and hold it up to the window, with some liquid courage I agreed to do it. The message said something like "JGL-Love your new show!" After a second of holding it up he noticed, smiled, and gave me a thumbs-up. I waved and blew a kiss like the 13 year old I am ;)  A few people in his crowd snapped a pic of me holding up the phone.  I am still waiting for my call from People magazine to do an interview on my brush with fame -wink wink!


Here's a shot of the main street in Park City


 On our way out of town we stopped to check out some of the beautiful snow covered mountains of Utah, it truly is beautiful there everywhere you look. We had a fantastic time- thank you to Lisa and Josh for hosting us!







Sunday, January 12, 2014

Baby it's cold outside!

We started off the week going to to friends wedding, the groom is one of John's old  fraternity brothers and the bride is a lovely lady we have gotten to know and love over the last few years- we had a great time.  When cleaning out a closet recently I came across my old junior prom dress, it is a little black sparkly dress. Perfect for a wedding so close to New Years Eve, with a bride who loves all things sparkly. I was happy to be able to still wear it, 17 years after its original outing! I think the highlight was when I got a compliment from a young teenager while walking through the lobby- made this 35 year old still feel like she can rock it!


Just for jokes John put on his bow tie from Junior prom too!


Monday morning we were hit with a cold snap, temps dropped down to -14 overnight with -40 windchills. We always wondered if our car display would read negative numbers? Guess now we know!

We spent a lot of time inside the next few days ...





We tried to copy this cute Pinterest snowman idea...


It did not come out so well- lol!!



Finally we were able to play outside a little and enjoy the snow!


On Saturday Anabelle and John started ice skating lessons. Even though it was very difficult for them, they both did a great job!



Learning how to stand up.

And she's up!


With her teacher Ms. Heather


Sadly I got no photos of John, I'm sure he is thankful ;)