Happy Birthday to Me!

On this, the eve of my 36th birthday, I am feeling reflective... haha! Just kidding, I am mostly thinking about how awesome my cake will be tomorrow. I baked a chocolate chip cookie dough cake for myself, which Gus and the kids decorated. But the cake! It is going to be SO GOOD!

But seriously... 36 is not exactly a milestone. It's just another year! But I have always loved my birthday. I look forward to being spoiled by my family tomorrow, and then going out for Mexican food (and margaritas!). Life is good. I have a few (maybe 3??) gray hairs that I am noticing more frequently, and my body shows evidence of having created two human beings, but I still feel like I am 25 most of the time. I love where we live, though I am really ready for spring (it's about to be April and we had SLEET for several hours this morning. And now I know what sleet is!! It's not good!). The kids are at such awesome ages for everything, and I genuinely like being around them as much as I am (which is a lot!). I have very little to complain about. Even the never-ending home improvement projects give me a feeling of satisfaction and pride. I love walking through the house and thinking, "I made it like this!" But there is still a long way to go, of course!

Anyway... I can't wait to celebrate with my little family tomorrow. I couldn't imagine a better way to turn 36. Or, as I'm calling it, 21 for the 16th time. :) Check out how Gus and the kids decorated my cake!! :)

Tiny Dancer

The recital costumes have arrived!! The recital costumes have arrived!!!! Someone was very excited. Isn't she ADORABLE?

Also, word to the wise: if you type "recital" too quickly, it might turn out to be "rectal," which means something ENTIRELY different. Proofreading is my friend!

Yellow Belt! (and other news)

It's been too long since I last blogged, which now means I am faced with a long "catch-up" post. Except I can't remember everything! Oops. This is why I should really just post more often and not get myself into this situation, huh? Sigh...

Anyway... I'll start with today and see if I can piece things together. Our boy had his very first belt test this morning, and he did great! I'd been practicing with him all week (alone, since Gus was in Mexico for work), and I think I was as nervous as he was. But he was very focused, and did his absolute best. We are proud of our little yellow-belter (if that's a "thing," haha)! Let's see, what else? Spring started on Thursday. It still feels like winter, here, of course! It's been the longest, coldest winter EVER! But we are trying to be positive. We've had a week of warmish temperatures (in the low 40s), and most of the snow in the front yard is gone. Except, of course, the mountain covering what will someday be my vegetable garden (sigh...). BUT!!!! There are birds singing again, which is a welcome sign! We have started to see robins poking around on the ground again, and I've even heard our cardinal friend in the back yard. And, best of all, I looked closely at our front planters, and there are tons of plants just barely starting to emerge! Last fall, when my mom was here, she planted the tons of bulbs I had purchased: crocus, tulips, daffodils, and irises. I can't wait to see all the color!!!! Spring may actually decide to come this year! Hallelujah! :)

Also on Thursday, Maya and I went over to my friend Miranda's house to play while Niko was at school. It was in the forties, and we were all sort of desperate to get outside... but it was windy and felt really COLD. So it didn't last long.

Oh, but the theme of this week? Frozen, all the way! The movie (which is Maya's favorite movie EVER and Niko's "favorite DISNEY movie ever") came out on DVD this past Tuesday. I thought I had preordered it, but it didn't show up in the mail that day. So I called, and learned that the order had been canceled (long, really dumb story). So Maya and I hopped into the car and went to buy it. And I think they have watched it a billion times this week. I sing the songs in my sleep. We put the digital copy on our Kindle Fire, so it's on pretty much constantly. I won't lie, I love it, too. And "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" brings tears to my eyes every. single. time. Gah!!!

Speaking of Frozen... if any family members who read this blog happen to find the Disney Store's "Elsa" dress anywhere (size 4-6), BUY IT! And then let me know! I bought the vastly inferior Target version for Maya for her birthday, but would gladly return it so I could get her the nicer one. But it's pretty much the most popular thing ever. I think it sold out online in less than two minutes. No joke. And the dresses are going on Ebay for hundreds of dollars! Insane!! I know she will still be happy with the one I got her, but that other one is just so much nicer...

ANYway... I feel like that's it! I've been a Mom Taxi, as always. I'm just biding my time, waiting for baseball season to start and for spring to actually begin. I've also been working on a little girl's 5th (!!!) birthday party. Busy busy!

One last thing, though-- our boy, reading this book for the very first time. His reading gets better by the day! He's already mastered all the sight words for kindergarten AND first grade, along with tons of challenge words. And his sister is not far behind! Woohoo!!

Our weekend...

Looking ahead at the weekend forecast, I was so excited! Temperatures in the FORTIES! A sign that spring might really, actually come this year, despite all the white stuff that is still on the ground. It's been an especially COLD winter, and forties just sounded amazing after all the single-digit and negative numbers we've seen (thanks a lot, Polar Vortex...).

So, of course, I spent my Saturday morning in a first aid class required for coaching Little League. Nooooooooo!!! But really, it wasn't bad. The guy who ran the class was really very well-informed and interesting. I now know about all the ways people can be injured while playing baseball! Thankfully, most of these injuries aren't too common at the t-ball level. And now I'm done with that requirement. Hooray!

Once I got back home, I was itching to get outside. We actually started to go out to play, but then realized that the snow was deeper than we thought. Instead, we ended up going to see a movie ("Mr. Peabody and Sherman"-- it was cute!). Discovering a discount first-run movie theater has changed our lives!! I can't believe it took us over two years to learn this, but it's so great. All the kid movies start showing there as soon as they open, and tickets are only $5! Awesome!

Once we got back from the movie, we DID get outside! The kids had loads of fun, mostly making snowballs and throwing them at trees...

Meanwhile, I kept myself busy digging for buried treasure. Literally! The amount of snow on our back deck is INSANE-- there is so much, and it's always in the shade, so it just doesn't go away (and probably won't until well into the spring-- we'll see our grass long before we see the deck). But underneath that snow is a very large deck box containing all of our fun outdoor stuff. Which includes all of our baseball stuff-- gloves, balls, bats, the works. And seeing as I'm about to be COACHING, I figured I should unearth my own glove, at the very least. So I did. Whew. So much ice to chip away! I got my exercise for the day!

Then, Sunday morning dawned bright and early. TOO early. An hour earlier than it should have, thanks to the time change! But we still managed to get our act together to drive down to see the Worcester County St. Patrick's Day parade!

It was a little on the cold side, and seemed a lot less interesting than last year. Granted, I watched the parade with my friends last year after running my very first 5K, and was sort of high on life! And we had beer. But today's parade seemed to drag at a lot of points. And it was chilly. I did, however, enjoy the pipe bands (of course!), the high school marching bands, and the Irish step dancing groups. All very cool!

And it was very convenient, too, that the parade route ran just two blocks from a small cafe where one of our favorite people was having a book launch party in the afternoon! The kiddos' former preschool teacher has written this sweet, sweet book called "Ella and the Worry Doll." We stopped by to support her and visit with her, as well as pick up a signed copy (of course!). She is just the nicest person, and is really the first person we met here in town. We actually met with her to chat and tour the school the day after we made an offer on this house! We saw some familiar faces there-- lots of her old preschool families came down the hill to the party. It was very nice. And the kids both cracked up tonight when we got to the "About the Author" page, and there was a picture of "their" Allison, right in the book! So, she's famous. We love her! :)

Then we came home, and I proceeded to clean out Maya's drawers and closets. A mom friend here in town came by the other day with three HUGE trash bags full of clothing for her-- an entire spring and summer wardrobe! And it was NICE clothing! I was blown away! So I needed to find a home for it all, which I did. Maya cracks me up, though, with her "girliness." She is so much more of a girly-girl than I've ever been! She pulls things out and comments on how CUTE they are, and how certain things match each other, and where she can wear certain dresses, etc. She is just a happy kid, and I love her!

Anyway... that was our weekend! Busy week ahead, filled with playdates, car appointments, errands, and SNOW (ugh). Is it Spring yet?????

New Backsplash - Revealed!!

I realize, now, that it's been over a week since I last posted. I went on that spree where I posted about our trip to California, and was all blogged out! Last week was, honestly, pretty brutal. I felt like I just couldn't catch up on sleep. Over the weekend, I finally found my motivation, and got back to work on the kitchen backsplash. Before we'd left for California, I'd laid as much tile as I could without using a tile (wet) saw. We had a tile snapper, which worked great for basic vertical cuts, but the tiles were so small that they just crumbled when I attempted to use the snapper for horizontal cuts. And everything I've said about marble says that you really need to use a wet saw. I planned to just rent one for a day...

Only we got back, and Gus was like, "Hey, look what I found in the garage!" A wet saw! Because Gus owns five million tools, and vaguely remembered buying that when he first moved in and was tiling the laundry room floor. Anyway, he helped me get it set up, and we were back in business! I finished laying the tiles on Saturday morning. That afternoon, I taped everything off and sprayed the tiles to seal the stone (because marble stains easily, and can even be discolored by grout). I let it sit for almost two days. Sunday night, I caulked around the edges where horizontal and vertical surfaces meet. And yesterday afternoon, I grouted everything! Grouting is by far the worst, messiest step, and it was NOT fun, but look at the end result!!!!

sigh. I really, really love it! I still need to seal everything one more time (to include the grout), but that's easy. I even went through and replaced all the outlets and switches, and repainted that window frame/sill. It looks quite nice, if I do say so myself (and I do!).

Also in the past 48 hours... I signed a girl up for kindergarten next year (!!!), had my annual physical, dragged the kids with me to do my lab work for said physical (which involved a cup and a small restroom and two kids laughing hysterically... yay...), took my car in for a recall issue and some warranty work (no big deal), got children to and from their respective schools, and took Niko to karate. I am TIRED. But have you seen my kitchen??? :)