Disney on Ice

We brought Cassidy to Disney on Ice Treasure Trove yesterday. She wore her new Tinkerbell sweatshirt and was very excited! She said that seeing Mickey and Minnie was her favorite part.

We also updated her room this weekend with Minnie Mouse Wall decals!  She helped me put them up!  She had to put the Daisy sticker right next to Minnie so that "Minnie wouldn't be lonely".  She's very thoughtful.

Small Birthday party

We had my family over for dinner last night to celebrate my mom's birthday. It's always nice to get together.

Enjoying our new home

We haven't been doing much. Hanging out at the new house enjoying it. Enjoying being together.
Cassidy has been wearing her new clothes from Christmas. 

I painted the first room in the new house - Cassidy's of course. In her favorite color.  It's made me want to paint more room.

Cassidy started preschool! So far she's shy and quiet. I'm sure with a little time she'll come out of her shell.

We had a winter storm.  I don't mind a few inches and then it melts the next week. I can live with a winter like that!

Jake is getting used to the new house and I think he likes it. I caught him rolling around in the snow in the yard!

And we've been cheering for our favorite team - The Patriots!  Good luck to them today in the AFC Championship!

Loving Life!

Happy New Year

I feel like every year is a big year. 2011 was a big bad year (heart attack & cancer). 2012 was a year of change - changing the way I live. At work I’m much more relaxed – It’s just a job people!  It’s been noticed and commented on by some office friends. I don’t get stressed out when things don’t happen or move forward. I roll with the punches. I know that work, just doesn’t really matter. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I still give 110% at work, but I definitely have a different attitude about work.

We bought a new house. Taking a big loss on our old house but rationalizing that we’re buying in a down market. And it was worth it. I love this house!  We didn’t love the old house. To quote my husband (whenever we’ve shopped for home things the past 2 weeks) “Do you love it? If you only like it and don’t love it we’re not buying it. We’re doing it right this time”. We have a beautiful rug under our desk chair as a result!

At home, I think I’ve done my normal of trying to do as much fun stuff as possible. I’ve never been a stay-at-home girl so we’re always out and about. And now there’s always a little thought in the back of my mind that things can change really fast so enjoy every minute while you can.  Every minute of this sweet girl and my relationship with a loving man.

Mary Oliver said in a poem What are you doing with your one precious wild and crazy life?

I’m not doing anything very interesting. I’m not curing disease, solving world hunger or negotiating world piece. I’m taking care of MY one precious life. By having a good time and trying to enjoy everything. Snow that was fluffy. Beach vacations. Everything, big and small. I look forward to more of that in 2013!

Some fun things we've done lately - visited the Childrens Museum in Boston

Had Bill's family over to celebrate the holidays.

 

Christmas time is over

Ever since Halloween Cassidy is fascinated by holidays. It was Halloweentime (yes, everything has "time" attached to it). Then Halloweentime was over and it was Thanksgivingtime. So this morning when she asked about presents I said "Christmas time is over!"!  I'm already itching to get the tree down.  There was quite a few decorative items we never unpacked because we immediately put up Christmas decorations. I'd like to do that and get settled here.

 

Christmas Eve was spent at my moms. Cassidy enjoyed playing with her cousins. Which was good since they're 8 and 12 years older than her! She's the only little one in the family.

 

My grandmother got her the cutest doll wearing PJ's and matching PJ's for her!  So cute!

 

 

After she went to bed mommy & daddy had to put together Santa's present. Thankfully it didn't take long. The reaction in the morning was awesome! video below

 

 

We had a nice low key day.  No cooking - we got chinese food - and we rented Ice Age 4 with my parents and Cassidy.  I am off from work for 2 weeks and Bill is off this week so we're going to try to do some fun things!

 

Christmas Eve 2012

Christmas is fun with an almost 3 year old. Everytime she see's Santa she asks "where's my present?"  I've talked about how Christmas is not all about presents and it's about spending time with people you love. And she says "yeah, where's my present?"

Santa visited her school Friday so I brought her. She didn't look happy. She said that she was happy though when she saw the picture. She also said a book was "always what she wanted for Christmas"

 

She's touched and looked at all the presents under the tree. One of hers is round and I found her sitting on it watching tv yesterday!

 

Today we went to the playground after running some errands. It was only 37 degrees but sunny and not too windy. There was no one else there so that was awesome. We both went down all the slides. Even the big ones!  She shot down some of the big ones so fast she landed on her butt at the bottom!

 

 

She is talking up a storm and comes out with some funny stuff. We made cookies for Santa this morning. So after the playground I ask her what she wanted for lunch?

She says "cookies"

I say "no, we don't eat cookies for lunch, that's not healthy"

She says "mommy, you're ruining my perfect day"

 

WHAT?  She repeated it a bunch of times. It was really hard not to laugh. I don't know where she gets this stuff.

 

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!

All moved in, just in time for Christmas

Moving was stressful. Things went wrong a few days before causing us to change all of our plans. but I'm not going to dwell on that.
We moved with lots of our own backbreaking labor!  Big thanks to Lenny, Lisa, Keith & Devahanna for helping us move.  And my parents for watching Cassidy and Jake and helping us unpack!

Pictures from moving day

 

Our outdoor decorations at the new house

 

 

Getting organized and getting  ready for Christmas. Love my new curtains!

 

The house is so big. It's great! I almost can't believe we live here. I never imagined we'd be able to buy a brand new house. We're having awesome dance parties in the kitchen!

Cassidy's first real haircut

A few well meaning folks had been pressuring me to have Cassidy's hair trimmed. I was unsure because it's still so short. But it was many different lengths so it was a little crazy. After talking to my hairdresser I decided to bring her. Oddly, her hair looked pretty good that day.

 

She was definitely nervous but she didn't cry at all and she did really really well. I was very proud of her! After she was very silly at home so all further pictures are blurry (well, most of my pictures are blurry lately - she doesn't sit still!).

Meanwhile we're busy packing and buying things for the new house. You don't think about the things a brand new house doesn't come with. Window shades, curtain rods, toilet paper holders...  we've been really busy. The move is in 11 days!

 

 

Thankful

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for most of the same things everyone is thankful for, health, family, friends and pets. Every day is an opportunity to laugh and enjoy life. That’s what I try to do and I’m doing a pretty good job at it.  I never worried that I would die from cancer, but even the remotest possibility made this life so much more precious. Life is great! 

3 weeks until we move so I'm hoping to get some packing done this long weekend!

Bowling fun

Yesterday we went bowling with my sister and her family. We had a great time. Though we all stunk on the 2nd string. We thought we'd do better but, Cassidy beat quite a lot of us!

We all helped Cassidy. She loved bowling but only would use solid colored balls.

 

We played boys against girls (girls had a bumper).

 

After we went out to lunch. On the drive home I said something about being tired and Cassidy chimes in from the backseat "I'm not tired, I'm not tired" and not 5 minutes later she's sleeping. LOL.