My Little Sweethearts

When I gave Jules her Valentine gifts, she was so excited and thankful. She opened her box of chocolate hearts and although she absolutely LOVES chocolate, the very first thing she did was give one to me and one to her dad. She shared with everyone all day. She is very generous with her things.

When Nat came downstairs and saw that there were gifts and cards and cookies for her, she became teary-eyed and cried, "but I didn't get you a Valentines gift." I had to work hard through the morning to console her. Later, my parents took us out to Valentines lunch. John had to leave a little early for work and as he was preparing to go, Nana heard Natalie say to him, "on your first day off, can you take me to get mommy a Valentines gift? On your first day?" She is often thinking of others.

My little sweet petites. I love them so much. I am so blessed to have girls with such kind, kind souls.

Oooooh and Aaaaah

Hope you all enjoyed your 4th of July festivities. We did. John worked 12 hours yesterday, but as soon as he got home we got ourselves together and went to Sunset Park in Londonderry Twp. The 257th Army Band, "The Band of America's Capital," performed and was followed by a fireworks show.
We came prepared with snacks, a big blanket, and extra warm clothes for the girls. While I was wishing I had brought myself a sweatshirt or something, the girls, of course, wanted no part of their warm clothes. But like any good mother - I forced them. =)
We enjoyed our snacks.... in the first 30 minutes of being there =) We just can't help ourselves. If food is in front of us, we eat it like we may never eat again. At one point, John said, "have you noticed anyone else feeding their faces since the moment they sat down? I mean, other than anyone in our family?"
Sometimes he cracks me up. I looked over and saw a large rectangle in the grass, about 8ft by 20ft. It was filled with pea gravel, tamped down tight. I said, "what is that thing? I mean what's it for?" John said, "I don't know, but it must be filled with gators because no one will set foot in it."

Anyway, back to our story. So finally, the fireworks begin and Julsie says her first full sentence "I wanna go home." For the entire show, she sat cradled in John's arms and would not remove her hands from her eyes. Poor girl.

So, as the show was going on, I commented on something I had noticed a few year back. Do you remember, how when we were little kids, everyone oooohed and aaahed at the fireworks? Back then, each fire work was set off individually, until the Grand Finale, of course ... which is what made it so special. But as each firework exploded in the night sky the entire crowd would, spontaneously and in unison, say "oooooh" and at the cue of the next bang, say "aaaaah."

I loved the synchronized "ooohs and aaaahs." It made you feel like part of something, like this entire group of strangers and you had something in common. This wave-like, rocking chorus of "ooohs and aaahs" made the fireworks extra fun.

But have you noticed? No one ooohs and aaahs anymore! It's so sad to me. I tried to personally bring it back last night, but not even my own family was catching on. Maybe its because the rapid succession of fireworks now comprising the main part of the show, comparable to our old Grand Finale, simply doesn't allow for it. Maybe it's because, as one kid so eloquently yelled out in a moment of silence, "hey it's just like Dutch Wonderland." The 4th used to be the one and only time of the year I saw fireworks. Now, you can see 'em almost every Saturday night at Hershey Park and like anything, if you start indulging in something "special" every day, it's just not special anymore.

The Eggstravaganza

We colored eggs on Saturday. Nat had been waiting and waiting. (She has already asked when we are coloring eggs again. "Next year?! But that will be so long, I know it will.") Jules was super enthused to participate this year and actually did a pretty good job of leaving them in the dye. On the other hand, she was a little over zealous to crack the eggs. She was really stressing Nat and me out because she kept cracking them before they were colored. Daddy saved the day. "Julsie, you have to be careful with the eggs, like they are babies." Immediately, Jules and Nat held eggs in their hands and rocked and snuggled them to their faces like little babies.

Daddy and I each had one egg to dye. I did mine in a star-burst pattern with white, yellow and orange (used tape.) Luckily Daddy has a wife who remembers her art classes and could produce a perfect brown for his egg. Brown? Along with green, he made a beautiful camo egg. Yes, nothing says "spring" like camo.

As was tradition in the Graham house, the girls hid their baskets for the Easter Bunny to find. (The bunny fills them and hides them in a new spot.) Here is a pic of Nat hiding her's in the shoe closet. Apparently Jules thought that was a pretty great idea and decided to hide her's there too.

Although Daddy wasn't home when we all woke up that morning (he wasn't home yet from work), there was no stopping the finding fun. The bunny had been there! Before I went to bed, I set out presents from us and Nana and Pop pop too. N&P sent (for each) an Easter dress, another outfit and candy! (mmm including that yummy chocolate peanut butter egg made by Sugar Lake Church.)

Making Madness

We began our Easter festivities bright and early on Friday morning. We headed over to the Hershey Outlets for their annual egg hunt/grab. When we got there, the place was so packed that we struggled to find a parking spot finally finding one behind the outlets in a semi-construction zone. After hustling the girls through the mess of people, we arrived at the "scene" just as they were yelling "go." We hustled to Nat's age group and luckily, a friend yelled to us and we got Nat wormed in beside another mom friend. It was crazy. It was madness. For those of you who've been to the spillway in Linesville, it was like that, but instead of carp, it was 4 and 5 year olds. Candy was flying, parents were yelling and holding their cameras above the crowd to take pics of the mayhem. Being late combined with Nat's mild temperament, she was out of luck when it came to the candy dept. I mean really out of luck. She didn't even get one piece... until our sweet friend gave each of the girls a lollipop from her bag. =) Hmm. A little sacrificial giving -- It may be Easter after all.

Later, we had our friends, K & K over to make and decorate some cut-out cookies. Here are the cuties with some of their creations. Much of the icing was simply licked from the tops of cookies and we made a big mess, but had a good time. The mess is half the fun, right? At least it is in our house. Poor little K kept saying "Messy... Messy."

John tried one and said it was the best sugar cookie he has ever eaten!!!! I got the recipe from my friend's blog..... The Gourmet Mom herself! Inspired by her valentine cookies, I experimented with Royal Icing (after the kids were in bed.) For my first try, I think they turned out ok. Not professional, but I learned a lot.

Can anyone tell me where my healthy eating trend got off course?

We Love Preschool!

Here are some pictures of our Valentine's party at preschool on 2/13. We read some stories about love, played a heart-hunt game where the girls had to find hearts hidden around the house BUT they could only pick up the hearts with their initial on them.

Next, we worked on a special project for each child to give to someone they love. They glued conversation hearts on a picture frame then put hand prints on card stock inside a heart shape. Here are some pics of the girls working on them and some pics of the finished products. (Well, my girls' finished products. Everyone else's are a nice light pink, which I preferred as I felt it matched the hearts better. Nat preferred the bright hot pink and insisted on painting hers and Julia's that color. I figured that it was HER project for HER daddy... so I let her go to town. ) As you can see, Nat would rather not be bothered with pics..... she's got a job to do.

Then, the girls enjoyed some Valentine decorated donuts. You know MY girls love donuts, so I thought it would be a good treat and accepted by moms for this special occasion. I will say, there were some comments on how rapidly and how efficiently Nat ate HER donut.

Finally, they exchanged Valentine's with each other and posed for a final picture.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Here are a couple ways we let people know that we love them this year. We sent out some homemade Valentine's to Grammas and Grandpas and our neighbors. On the left is a pic of some of them. On the back of each card is a hand-print of each girl with their name and date.
On the right hand side is a photo of the mobile Natalie and I made for Daddy. Double click on the photo to see it better, but here is what it says. Across the top, it says "I love it when we..." Then, in the hearts at the bottom, I wrote 5 things Natalie said she loved to do with Daddy.
I had to do a lot of the cutting and tying work, but I love it because of what Nat said: I love it when we..... "Play" "Cuddle" "Wrestle" "Walk on the sidewalk with Jazzy and walk up hills and up mountains" and what was the FIRST thing she said she liked to do with Daddy? "Watch Cops" =)

"G" It's Christmas!

Since Toby initially had to work all through the holiday (he subsequently got Christmas day off when a young single co-worker wanted to work that day for the extra money), my parents (the Gs), sister and BIL came down to spend the holiday with us. Too bad they had to stay at a hotel. I guess they could have slept on the couch and the blow-up mattress in a family-style slumber party. Whatever.

I told Natty they were coming and she got excited. "I'm going to be wowdy (rowdy) when they get here," she said." "You a-are? I said." "Yeah, I'm going to play with Uncle Jay!" and putting her hand to her forehead, said, "And Aunt Jess is going to give me like a thousand kisses!"

So after the fam arrived on Christmas eve, as is our tradition, we got to open one present - our Jammies! Here's a pic of the girls in theirs: (Julsie refused to put her pants on)

So, we chit-chat, have some snacks, etc. Shortly after they head to the hotel, I put the kids to bed and daddy gets home from work. Of course, both daddy and the girls are dying to see each other. There's just too much excitement in the air. Everyone gets all worked-up again and admittedly, I start to get irritated. I mean, Santa can't come unless you're asleep! So finally, I put the kids to bed and who else is in bed? John! I about flipped. I think the pressure of the holiday was getting to me. "What do you think you're doing?" I said. "Trying to sleep in the same bed as my wife on Christmas Eve." Ooooh. I felt low. He hurt his back again and had been sleeping on the couch all week. Once again, my fiery temper is cooled by his calm response.

Instead of staying up to finish, I hopped in bed too. I got up with Jules at 4:30am and stayed up to finish prep. John got up around 5. Well, not really. As I'm rocking Jules back to sleep, I see the girls' door slowly open. Was he peaking in to see if I was in there? No. He was crawling on the floor and pushing the door open with his head. He was looking for help. Remember I mentioned his back? Well, sleeping in our bed really "did him in" and he was on the floor for about 20 minutes before I could manage to help him up. (Nicely, he pretended like my yelling at him the night before never happened.)

Around 8, he couldn't wait any longer and woke the girls up. Nat is her daddy's baby and was like a total zombie for a while, despite the pile of presents before her. They had a great time opening their gifts and hanging out with my family all Christmas and the next day. (I think Uncle Jay needed a good nap after playing so much).


As a post-script, Toby, for once, was completely surprised (and thrilled) by one of his gifts - a leatherman from my parents. I too was totally caught off-guard with my gifts and felt like a little kid again. I thought I was way past that, but I guess not =)

"O" Christmas

My MIL and FIL are in from Montana for about 3 weeks and are staying in Linesville at my SIL and BIL's home. Tob had a few days off, so we headed up to celebrate Christmas with them on Saturday the 20th. We got in on Friday and as usual, SIL had a great meal for us and terrific baked goods. Saturday was exciting as they got a new dining room table and chairs and MIL made her famous sauce. We exchanged gifts and got to play cards. (I think that's my favorite tradition at his family's home. We eat dinner, have some great dessert and play cards or a board game together as a family. It can get wild, but it's always fun!) Here are some pics of Christmas day. The girls were, of course, spoiled rotten.

Arent' my little nephews adorable? They are all-boy, but really sweet with the girls and love them. Unfortunately, only one of my beautiful nieces were able to get to visit with us that day.

Knowing that we probably won't see the grandparents again until summer, Tob and I were really hoping the girls wouldn't take long in "warming up" to them. (Sometimes Nat can be a little shy.) Both girls were great though. Hugs, kisses and the chit-chat flowed right away and we were very happy with that.

Our Christmas Decorations

Oooops. Forgot to show you what some of our decorations looked like. I don't have a good picture of our mantle with our homemade stockings, but these will have to do:

John made three beautiful grapevine wreaths .... HIMSELF! Included is a picture of one of them. I was completely floored by this. He took the dog for a walk and came back with the wreaths. He added the holly and berries himself too. Seriously. After almost 10 years, he still can surprise me.

The Tiny Tannenbaum

Here are a few pictures of us hunting for our Christmas tree. John thought we should go cut our own tree this year, but with everyone's sickness and it already being so late in the year, we just went to a couple stands.

Natalie kept saying she wanted a little tree. I guess she wanted a REALLY little tree. She looked at me, held this piece up and said excitedly, "I found one!" Daddy pulled one out of the line-up here to seek her approval. It was about 7, 7.5 feet tall. "What about this one Nat?" As if she thought he was crazy, she said, "What in the world!"

All the trees at the first stand were pretty tall (and a little expensive), so we decided to head down the street. We went to the Lions' stand. It had a wonderful selection of trees, organized by type. In addition to the monsters, there were plenty of small trees too! They were so nice there and gave us coloring books and candy canes for the kids and special tabs to keep the tree fresh!

And here she is:

the beautiful little tree we came home with (picked out by John and Natty). John and I think its the best tree we ever had =)

The 60 Mile Trick-or-Treat Saga

We went back to Western PA for Halloween weekend. John headed down to Allegheny County to hunt the big bucks. The girls and I went to my parents' home to visit and go trick-or-treating. It was like a winter wonderland at mom and dad's (M&D's). Here are the girls the morning after we got there. John thought mom was "exaggerating" when she said 4 inches, so I took pics to prove it.

So, Nat decided to be a duck (again) and Jules was a lady bug. Both girls were really good about dressing up. We left the house around 6:00. First, we went to my hairdresser's (near M&D's). Then, we drove around the countryside to houses of friends. No one was home! So, we headed to downtown Cochranton and went to some of our friends' there. Here is Nana, our dear friend Pat, and the girls. Pat is one of their favorite people. Mine too. We try to go to breakfast with Pat nearly every morning we're at M&D's.

We hit 2 more stops in town and headed to Aunt Nance's. As she filled Nat's bag with tons of candy, Old Maid cards, crayons, color books, I thought "oh, that's okay, she's putting items for both girls in the one bag.... man, that's a lot of stuff." But oh, I was wrong. She headed back to the table and grabbed just as much loot for Jules and filled her bag too! She spoils them! Then, she had her sister-in-law and niece all lined up next door to give the girls candy too! As we left her house I said to Nat, "Aunt Nance loves you girls soooo much." Nat replies, "She loves us so much I ... I don't even know WHAT to say." I ended up not getting any good pics there. They were all blurry but this one ... (don't ask John what he thinks about my photog. skills)

For our final stop, we headed down to Sheakleyville to "Aunt Ronda" and Patrick's. She has been my mom's friend since first grade and we spent a lot of time with her and her two girls as I was growing up. We were going to have a "party!" and did we ever.... just for my two girls! She must have spent hours working on getting ready. She was decked out in kid-friendly Halloween garb, had decorated clear plastic glasses with Halloween stickers, made about a million orange-frosted, specially embellished cupcakes presented in glass and on a 3-tier tray, candy galore, beautiful Halloween gift bags with special candy for each girl. She had the festive plates and napkins. She even had the ceramic ghosts her mother had made. (I immediately remembered them from being at "Nana Hudson's" house as a child.) We ate cupcakes and milk and donuts and coffee and talked with them until 10:30!!!! We were pooped, but who cares when you're on a sugar-high?

As we were leaving, I was thinking about Aunt Ronda's first grandchild (on the way.) What wonderful memories and special moments she will create for her grandbabies, huh?

Anyway, on Halloween I felt so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family.