Updates and Birthday pics!

Hello :-) Just a few updates... I'm slacking with my blog as usual,I know.

I had Alyson's 1st birthday pictures taken at Sears last week.. just got them back today. Here is a slideshow of all the proofs! She fussed a little at first when she started getting her picture taken, but eventually that big toothy grin made an appearance :-)

I've been busy planning her first birthday party... I've decided to have it at our house, though Russ is trying to talk me into having it somewhere. I just want to have it at home so everyone can just hang out and we're not pressured to clean up and be out by a certain time, ya know?

Anyway, I'm doing the "1st cupcake" theme. It's cute... not girly, really, but I like it. I was going to do Strawberry Shortcake, but changed my mind at the last minute and decided to do a 1st birthday theme. Here's what the theme looks like...



I have streamers and a banner for the yard, along with lime green, purple, yellow and red balloons, and 1st birthday foil balloons.... also got a highchair decorating kit (bib, party hat, streamer for on highchair, and a mat for underneath the highchair). I bought pretty much every item offered in this theme...lol. I couldn't resist. I'm just so excited for the party! I'm sending all the invites out in the mail tomorrow... I was just waiting for her pics to come back so I could put them in the invites. Now I just have to figure out where I want to get the cake from, and get the food ordered. We're buying the big dinner stuff from a local restaurant Russ does business with (rigatoni, chicken, etc), I'm making a few things, and my mom and mother-in-law have offered to make some things too. So I have all the details down, just finalizing things :-)

When I'm not party planning (lol) I've just been TRYING to relax (is there such a thing with an almost-1-year-old?!). Russ and I were out on the boat most of Memorial Day weekend...it was a good time. Sunday was BEAUTIFUL... we took Alyson on the boat with us... she didn't know what to do at first and just stayed on my lap, then got a little more adventurous later and started crawling around. Monday my parents offered to watch Alyson for a little bit, so we went out on the boat with a few friends, then to my parents' house for a cookout.

That's about it for the excitement lately... just been enjoying the warm weather. I got all my flowers planted and things cleaned up around the house and on the deck. Today was a beautiful day too... mid 70's and a cloudless blue sky. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and around 80! I bought Aly a baby pool when we were out today, so I'm going to see if she'll go in it tomorrow. With as much as she loves splashing around in the bathtub, she should LOVE a baby pool! I'll be sure and have my camera ready :-)

Well, I can hardly keep my eyes open, so I'm gonna end this here and head to bed. It's so hard to believe that I used to stay up so late every night. Now, I feel like the furthest thing from a night owl. I'm now a "go to bed by 11pm because my daughter wakes me up by 8am" mommy. But I wouldn't have it any other way. For some reason, waking up early doesn't bother me when I'm greeted by Alyson with a big huge smile on her face, stretching her arms out for me and saying "ma ma ma ma!" :-)

Nighty night!

Random 'I'm so bored' post.

Well, I hope all you mommies out there had a WONDERFUL Mother's Day! Russ and I went to my Grandma's house on Mother's Day for a little family get-together... it was a good time. He was supposed to take me shopping that day ( I have been telling him about this mother's ring I LOVE), but we didn't have enough time before we left for my Grandma's house. He took me to the mall on Monday... I looked in a few jewelry stores, but didn't find the ring I wanted. I ended up getting some new sandals and some summer clothes. :-)

As for my being sick, I'm feeling ALOT better now. Almost totally back to my normal peppy self. Almost... I'd say I'm about 90%. 3 more days of Penicillin and I'm done with that.

On another note... is anyone else out there a Pittsburgh Penguins fan? They are doing AWESOME! I got away from watching hockey for awhile, but got back into it recently. Only 1 more game to win and they are up for the Stanley Cup! WOO HOOOOOOOO! :-)

Ok...just had to get that out.

Not much else to talk about. I'm just wishing I was back on a beach somewhere. This weather here SUCKS lately. It just doesn't want to warm up!! If it IS warm, it's all cloudy and rainy. Blah. Give me a nice sunny day, please! Preferably about 75 degrees! But maybe we WILL be on a beach again soon... we were supposed to go see Russ's brother and his wife in Alaska later in the summer, but it turns out that they are going to be in Costa Rica in June sometime, so we might just meet up with them there. Not sure what all is in Costa Rica, but heck, we'll try it. I'm up for anything!

Well, my little girl is making a mess of the house (which I DID have all nice and cleaned up) so I'd better get her before it looks like a tornado went through here. I already have to go out later and get us a new phone, because she's dropped it so much it doesn't work that well now. Our friends have informed us that it probably won't be the FIRST time we have to get a new phone...lol.

Alright... better get Aly now. Thank goodness it's almost nap time for her!!

Have a great day.

Punta Cana trip and my sick self

Well, Russ and I are back from our trip to Punta Cana :-) While it was great to get away for awhile, I was never so happy to get home. The first reason being that we didn't take Alyson with us so I COULD NOT wait to see her... the second being that I was SICK AS A DOG the day we came home. My sinuses started acting up during the trip, but I figured it was just the humidity, temperature change, blah blah blah. I was fine for 3/4 of the trip, then Monday morning before coming home, I woke up and just felt weird. My throat was feeling funny, I didn't have an appetite, and my eyes felt like they hurt.

We left the resort at 10am (long ride to airport) and our flight was scheduled to leave Punta Cana at 1:30pm. WELL... by the time we were ready to board the plane, I was feeling MISERABLE. My head was thumping and I felt like I was burning up, yet I was freezing. I had to be running a fever but didn't have a way to check. So THEN we find out that our flight was being delayed because the stupid computers crashed and the people who hadn't checked in yet had to get all their boarding passes and luggage tags done manually. UGH. So we boarded the plane at 1:40, only to wait on the plane another hour before taking off, waiting for all the people who got stuck in line when the computers crashed. I was NOT a happy camper. So there I was, stuck for 4 hours between Russ and some lady I didn't know. I covered up with a blanket the whole time, and Russ thought I was nuts because he was hot as heck. Once we got to our connection at JFK in NY, I was sweating bullets and felt like my head was in a sauna and the rest of me was in an igloo. I ended up finding a store that sold sinus medicine, so I took some, and thankfully it started working before we boarded the plane to come back to Pittsburgh.

So I figured I just had a sinus thing and it'd be better in the morning. WRONG. I woke up and could practically swallow, my nose was stuffed up, my eyes felt swelled shut, etc etc.... I looked in the mirror, opened my mouth...and.... strep throat. I was so TICKED. I haven't had this since I was a kid! Why now?! So I checked my temp and it was 102... and even though I felt crappy at the time, it was nothing like how I felt the day before, so God knows what my temperature was then.

I called the doc to get something called in, and left a message. THe nurse practitioner didn't call back until later in the afternoon, and she said there was nothing she could do until the next day (wednesday). So I suffered Tuesday, swallowing Ibuprofen and gargling salt water til I was about to yack. Wednesday morning I was MISERABLE, with a temp of 103.8...and thank GOD I got my prescription by early afternoon. I was about to suck it up and head to ER, though I was in no shape to sit there and wait all day.

So now I'm on Penicillin, and it seems to be working. My throat is still sore and I sound all nasally when I talk... I still ache.... my ears hurt.....my eyes hurt... my frickin TEETH feel like they hurt...and I still have white tonsils.... but at least I don't have a fever anymore. LOL. It gets a little better everyday. It just sucks because Tuesday morning is when we picked Alyson up from Russ's mom's house, and I couldn't wait to see her, but I felt so crappy because of being sick, and I hated to get HER sick. So Russ's mom came over Wednesday and a little bit of Thursday afternoon to help me out with Alyson... I tried not to get TOO close to her until the Penicillin kicked in. Supposedly things are no longer contagious, so I'm REALLY gonna feel bad if Alyson gets sick.

ANYWAY... that's the bad news of the trip. The trip itself was awesome.... the weather there was on and off rainy, but it was mostly cloudbursts. I guess people were right when they said it rains ALL THE TIME in Punta Cana... showers just come out of nowhere, and the sun will be out the whole time! Speaking of the sun... it is HOT down there. We were only on the beach not even 2 hours the first time, and Russ got burned pretty bad.... Mr. "I don't need sunblock because I'm already tan." LOL. He got fried the first day on the beach. Me, I put sunblock on, but every spot I missed ended up bright red, one being my forehead...lol.

ANother thing... LOTS of boobies and speedos on the beach. JEESH! And wouldn't you know, the first set of tatas that we saw belonged to a dark leathery looking old lady. She didn't give a darn either. I told Russ, "Hey, if she wants them hanging out, more power to her." Russ especially liked when 2 girls who looked to be in their 20's laid out close to us and let it all hang out. He smiled and goes, "See? That's when these sunglasses come in handy." Men. :-P

Dealing with the resort, it was beautiful! We stayed at the Riu Palace Punta Cana,an all-inclusive resort. I'll put a slideshow of pics at the end of this post :-)

Being that I'm feeling pretty crappy, I'd better get some sleep now. Alyson's been waking up earlier now. OH--- by the way-- my baby's WALKING! She's still wobbly and falls down alot, but she's been taking off on her own and will walk all across the living room, down the hall, through the kitchen, wherever she wants. I couldn't believe it! She had been taking a few steps on her own prior to us leaving on the trip, but not until yesterday did she start walking longer distances. :-)

Alright...more soon. Take care!

The big 2-8...

Finally... a few minutes to post. I've made Alyson busy by sitting her down in front of her Learning House with some cheerios. :-)

Well, as of Sunday the 13th at 10:51am, I'm officially 28. 2 years away from 30....hard to believe. The weekend was pretty nice... I didn't have to cook ONCE! Saturday we took the baby over to our friends Dean and Joelle's for their daughter Jillian's 3rd birthday party. Talk about little kid city! There were so many kids running around the house... I was thinking, "This is a glimpse into my future..." lol. (I'm already planning Alyson's 1st birthday party!)

Anyway, after the party, we rushed home and changed, took the baby to Russ's mom's house and picked our friends Joe and Denise up. Joe's bday is the 12th and mine was the 13th, so the four of us went out to dinner up on Mount Washington in Pittsburgh, to a restaurant called the Georgetowne Inn. It was ok... the view of the city was AWESOME, but I don't think that restaurant would be at the top of my 'places to go back to' list! Overall it was a good time though. The four of us went out lastyear, to the same area but to a restaurant down the street, Monterey Bay. AWESOME seafood. So we're thinking this will probably be a yearly tradition with us, going out to dinner for our birthdays :-)

Sunday was my ACTUAL bday... Me, Russ and Alyson met my mom and dad and Russ's mom and husband Steve at Red Lobster. Halfway through the meal, I asked my dad, "They don't know it's my birthday, do they?" and he said no, that he hadn't told anyone. Once the end of the meal came, the waitress asked if we wanted dessert. We were all stuffed and said no. A few minutes later, she comes back and puts this HUGE piece of chocolate cake with ice cream down in front of me, and here come the waitresses to sing me happy bithday. I looked at my dad and said, "You're a good liar!" and he laughed and goes, "I swear, I didn't say anything!" Turns out Russ's mom told our waitress while I was busy and didn't notice. Sneaky sneaky. So at the end of the meal, we all got to enjoy my "this is so good I could now die happy" chocolate cake...even Alyson got a little bit of ice cream.

After Red Lobster, we went to the mall and walked off some chocolate cake calories...lol. That night, my husband ACTUALLY OFFERED to give me a back rub. Oh, and I got a dozen roses too :-)

So that's about it for the weekend. Not much else has gone on since. Just cleaning house and spending time with my beautiful little girl :-)

Well, the cheerios are gone and she's pulling on the cord to my laptop trying to chew on it, so it's time to end this here. More another time.... :-)

Have a great night! (Mine will be spent on the couch watching the finale to Biggest Loser) :-)

Attempt at some updates

I know it's been awhile, so I'm going to try my best to update...


Well,for starters.... Alyson had her 9-month visit to the pediatrician a few weeks ago... everything went well, and she's doing great! She now weighs 21 1/2 pounds (90th percentile) and is 29 1/4 inches tall (95th percentile.) The size of her noggin is still off the charts...lol.

She did great during the visit....until the doctor came in. I didn't know how bad her stranger anxiety was! I didn't think she had it that bad, but she wanted NOTHING to do with the doctor. She cried and reached up her arms for me to pick her up the whole time she was on the exam table. I had to hold her so he could listen to her heart and lungs and everything. On top of all this, she still needed two shots. (ugh)She ended up calming down toward the end, but even after the doctor and nurses left the room, she DID NOT want on that exam table anymore! I got her clothes and laid her back down on there so I could get her dressed, and she WAILED and wanted picked up again. Needless to say, it was an interesting visit.

Things with Aly have been good... seems like it's something new every week now! She's constantly getting into EVERYTHING, and has me running around chasing her around the house all day long. I'm trying to teach her to use a sippy cup, and so far it's going ok. She'll take a few sips, then she just waves the cup around, chews on the handle, and throws it on the floor. :-P She's enjoying her zwieback toast, biter biscuits, gerber puffs, and has a newfound love for Club Crackers. I've started doing more table food with her, and so far so good.

We've been enjoying the warm weather lately... she loves loves LOVES being outside. Prior to this nice weather, she hadn't been outside for a long period of time since October, when it was still somewhat warm out... and of course she was too young to know what the heck was going on. But now, she looks all around and just giggles at the dogs running in the yard, and just has a permagrin on her face... it's adorable! I had her outside yesterday while I cleaned things out on our deck...I took her Around-we-go walker (aka the "roundy round" as I call it) outside and she stayed in that and snacked on her Gerber puffs and cheerios and played with the dogs. I just can't wait to get her little baby pool out and let her splish splash around in it!! :-) This summer's gonna be so fun with her.

In other news, Russ and I looked at a few houses last week. I don't even know why we bother, because we always come home afterwards and decide we're not in the position to move, blah blah blah. But the real estate agent we deal with called one day and told us about a house he was listing that 'was perfect for us.' (He knows what we're looking for by now, after taking us to look at a gazillion houses.) So we went to see a few houses on Saturday... the first one, which I thought I would LOVE, was a total disappointment. Nothing like what it looked like in the pictures on realtor.com. The other one which the agent recommended, however, was awesome. It was on 1.5 acres and only 4 years old. The people who live there have to relocate for the wife's job, so that's why they are selling. The house is adorable...one of those houses that actually IS in move-in condition. I wouldn't have to touch a thing dealing with paint or carpet or anything. It's actually the first house Russ and I BOTH loved. We seriously thought about making an offer, but the more we thought about it, the more we decided to hold off. It's at the top of our budget and we think that we could get more for our money if we wait awhile. Plus, the house just came on the market so we didn't know whether the people would hold off on accepting an offer and all that.

So, as usual, we have decided to stay put. Big surprise. I told Russ, "Do you realize that the past 3 springs, we have gone house-hunting? Is it just a spring thing, or what?!" lol.

Unfortunately, I don't have many more updates. I've just been busy redecorating the house. I got bit by the redecorating bug, and have been busy painting and switching things all around in the house. Russ just shakes his head and lets me do my thing. I tell him, "Just leave the decorating to me. I may ask you about a paint color now and then, but that's about it." If decorating were left up to him, every wall would be white with practically nothing on it. My latest project has been repainting the hallway...the color I originally bought for our bedroom, but decided not to use in there. So now I have to figure out a color for the bedroom so I can get THAT done. We need to call and get our bedroom furniture delivered, but I want the room painted first. It's just tough trying to get this stuff all done while Aly's here. She doesn't keep herself entertained for very long, and Gerber puffs and Zwieback toast only do so much! :-) She went to Russ's mom's today for awhile so I could get some painting done, so that was nice!

Well, I'm getting tired, so I'm gonna try to head to bed soon. Hopefully I can keep this updated more often....it's hard to try and play catch-up where blogging is concerned. Oh, and almost forgot... I'm gonna put some Easter pics at the end of this. We went to church and then over my grandma's house for Easter, that's about it.

Nighty night :-)

The bad and the very good!

I'm starting to be a slacker at posting again, sorry!

Things have been eventful lately, or uneventful, depending how you look at it. For starters, Russ's brother got married in MN this past weekend. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go. I ended up coming down with the flu the afternoon before we were supposed to leave.(Strangely enough, after just having told Russ's mom the week before that I've "been lucky I hadn't gotten the flu for awhile." HA! Spoke too soon, I guess...) I told Russ what was going on, but said I'd wait til Friday morning to figure out what I was gonna do. He woke me up at 7:30am Friday, and I THOUGHT I felt fine, til I got up and walked around a bit. Then the chills came again...ugh. I tried eating some cheerios, but breakfast didn't want to stay down, so I decided I'd better not go. I spent the morning crying on and off because I thought I'd FINALLY get out of town for awhile, and I hated to miss the wedding. I really had been looking forward to it.

I called my parents and told them I wouldn't be bringing Alyson over there after all (they were supposed to watch her all weekend), but they said they'd still keep her for a night or two, until I felt better. They came to get her Friday afternoon, and by Saturday afternoon THANKFULLY I was feeling better, so I went and got her that night. Thank goodness for my parents, I don't know what I'd do without them!

From what I've heard from Russ and his mom, things went well...I asked Russ if his brother cried when K walked down the aisle, and he goes, "Oh yeah...he was sobbing even before the wedding." LOL! Then Russ goes, "It brought back memories of our wedding...I was so nervous when I saw you walk down the aisle." Then he told me how much he missed me and Alyson while he was gone. I told him, "You called me more times in 2 days than you do in 2 weeks when you're home!" It was sweet... he kept me updated with everything that was going on and called, like, 4 times a day.

So there's that.

Now for my EXCITING news.... even more reason for me to exercise my butt off and get healthy....

Russ and I just booked a trip to Punta Cana!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sooooooo excited!!!! (Can you tell?!)

Neither of us have been there before. We didn't go anywhere last year being that I was pregnant for half the year, then had the baby in June... so we really haven't been anywhere since our anniversary trip in September '06. (That's when Russ swears Alyson was conceived... it wasn't, but I'll just let him believe that. He says it makes for a good story to tell her in the future...lol)

Anyway, we're staying at the Riu Palace Punta Cana. Here's a pic and a link to the site if you wanna check it out:



http://www.riu.com/en/hotel-riu-palace-punta-cana-dominican-republic.html

I can't WAIT! We're leaving early Friday May 2nd and coming home the following Monday night. Not very long, but just long enough to get some much-needed time away and enjoy the sun and sand! And that beautiful turquoise water!!! We're not taking Alyson with us, so we (well, mostly I) didn't want to be gone too long since our parents will be watching her...they're gonna split the time up and watch her a few days each.

Now comes what I dread, but have to do... bathing suit shopping! Gotta go find a cute one. Russ told me I only need to buy bottoms since we've heard alot of the European people go topless on the beach... I told him, "You only WISH I'd do that." LOL

Oh, and we've also decided we're going to visit Russ's brother in Alaska in July or August for a week or so. Before his flight home from Minneapolis, the staff said the flight had been overbooked. Russ volunteered to take a later flight since he really didn't need to rush home for anything... he was originally supposed to come home at 1:30pm but instead got home at 4pm. Since he did that, he got a free ticket for anywhere in the continental US, Alaska and Canada. So we're gonna use that toward his ticket to Alaska, and we got a refund from the ticket I didn't use. So Alaska here we come! We're gonna take Alyson with us... I can't wait. Her first flight... hopefully everything goes smoothly.

Well, it's late and I should have been in bed a long time ago. Alyson always wakes me up bright and early like clockwork for her morning bottle. When I hear her awake at, like, 7:30am, I wanna say, "Puhleeeeeeeeeeeease give me another hour. Just ONE. MORE. HOUR. :-)

Nighty night!

More of the white stuff.... blah.

THIS is what I see when I look out my front door. Snow, snow and more snow.



We've been getting snow nonstop for 2 days now. What was supposed to be rain according to Mr. Weatherman ended up being snow yesterday, so we got about 3 inches. Today, I don't know how much more we got... at least another 3 or 4 inches, plus some good 'ol sleet and hail balls. We were lucky though...some cities in Ohio got a foot or more of snow!

This just really sucks... I hate being stuck in the house!!! My vehicle is totally snow covered, and I dread going outside tomorrow morning to shovel the walks and make a path up the driveway to the mailbox. (God forbid we don't get our newspaper out of the box everyday... if we go a couple days without getting the paper, our delivery lady just won't give us anymore papers!) We've called the newspaper office tons of times about that, but nothing's ever done. I know for sure today's and yesterday's papers are in there since it was snowing and I didn't feel like going to get it!...so I doubt she'll give us a Sunday paper. Beeotch. She could at least put it in the mailbox part instead, but she never does! Unless there's some kind of law against that that I don't know about....jeesh. Yeah, I can see the headline now... "Newspaper delivery lady gets 30 days in jail for placing customer's newspaper in mail slot instead of newspaper slot."

Sorry, that whole mail thing just sent me on a rant....it just irritates me. Maybe she's upset because she didn't get something for Christmas. And MAYBE SHE WOULD HAVE IF WE GOT ALL OF OUR PAPERS! :-P

So yeah...2 days of snow equals 2 days where I have hardly seen my husband. He's been in and out of the house since early Friday morning. It's pretty much been, "Hi, bye, love you." Today he goes, "So how does it feel being a single mother?!" (That's what the weekend has felt like!) The poor guy is lucky if he's gotten 3 hours of sleep this weekend. Every time he goes to lay down, his phone rings off the hook...either employees calling, or businesses wanting their lots resalted or whatever. Ticks me off. He's actually home right now... he's getting a WHOLE HOUR nap. Woo hoo...sense the sarcasm. I said, "WHy don't you stay home and get SLEEP and just tell everyone not to call you unless it's an emergency??" and he goes, "Honey, I would if I could...but half the guys still don't have the grasp of what they're doing..." etc etc etc.

I really reeeeeeeeeeeeally can't wait for the snow to be over. On top of all THIS current madness, there is snow predicted for this coming weekend, according to the 10-day forcast. This coming weekend being his brother's WEDDING weekend. We're supposed to be leaving Friday afternoon and won't be home til Sunday afternoon. Russ said that as of right now, he doesn't think he'll be going if there's even a CHANCE of snow coming. We already have all the plans made too... the dogs are set up to go to the kennel, my parents are going to watch Alyson for the weekend.... ugh. Now I don't know WHAT is going to happen. I tried to talk to him about it tonight, but he wanted nothing to do with that conversation..he said it's the furthest thing from his mind right now. He's so stressed out right now..it worries me, but he always says, "It's just part of the business." *sigh*

Anyhow...new subject. What would a post from me be without mentioning Aly? Since she's become an expert at using her little pincer grasp to pick dog food out of the dogs' bowl and attempt to put it in her mouth (an ongoing problem), I decided I would buy her some Gerber finger foods! I got her those little star-shaped banana puffs, and she got THE biggest grin on her face when I gave them to her. Here are some pics. (Notice Cody next to her, just waiting for her to drop one!)







And here is her first experience with teething toast...she didn't know what to think.



Well, Russ just woke up from his LONG (yeah right) nap... so I'm gonna go. Hope everyone's having a great weekend and that some of you east-coasters aren't TOO snowed in.