A to Z

A - Age: 33

B - Bed size: King

C - Chore you hate: Mopping

D - Dog's name: we have 3 little dogs, Graig LOVES them so much and wanted to breed little dogs are Cotton (is a MaltiPoo), Daisy and Ellie (are sisters and are YorkiePoos)

E - Essential start your day item: A Diet Coke and the Today Show

F - Favorite color: Pink

G - Gold or Silver or Platinum: Silver

H - Height: 5'5

I - Instruments you play: Flute

J - Job title: Assoc. Dir. of Campus Life

K - Kid(s): 2, Brock and Ava. I always knew I wanted 2 kids. Graig wanted a boy and I wanted a girl so have one of each really worked out for us :)

L - Living arrangements: a 1920 Tudor style home that I am constantly painting, rearranging, and decorating, I think I drive Graig crazy!!

M - Mom's name: Rose Marie

N - Nicknames: Mom, Mama, MaMoose (my mii name that Brock picked out)

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: never

P - Pet Peeve: SNOBS-get over yourselves!!

Q - Quote: "Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." ~Oprah

R - Right handed or left handed: Right

S - Siblings: 1 sister

T - Time you wake up: before 6:30 even on weekends, I am SUCH an early bird! But I do LOVE naps and going to bed early.

U- Underwear: Body by Victoria hip huggers from VS...so comfy!!

V - Vegetable you dislike: Beets, blech!

W - Why you run late: Brock and Ava

X - X-rays you've had: None but dental ones

Y - Yummy food you make: I love cooking so I think all my food is yummy!! Brock loves my tacos, Graig loves any desert that I make and Ava loves my grilled chicken

Z - Zoo favorite: any zoo babies, they are all SOOO cute!

PROCRASTINATION

That's my middle name! I haven't picked up a paintbrush since Sunday and our living room is a half painted WRECK. I took pictures but I am too embarrased to show them. Here is what I have been doing this week instead of painting:

1. Took Brock and Ava to the pool all afternoon on Monday and Tuesday

2. Made eggplant parm for dinner tonight

3. Made snickerdoodle cookies from my high school cookbook with Ava

4. Looked up our last name on ebay and ordered a book by an author that has our last name. There also used to be a beer that was called our last name I am also bidding on a round beer platter-doesn't every family need one of those?

5. Googled "poker tables" we are thinking of turning our never used sun room into a game room. Graig has poker at our house every Thursday night with his friends and they use our dining room. We are thinking it would be nice if we had a table that could stay up all the time. The one we really like costs $5000 so I don't think we will be buying one anytime soon.

6. Took Brock and Ava to the library to get some more summer reading books. Since I help them pick out books I never have time to really look for myself, I always go to the front shelf were the librarians display books that they recommend. Let me tell you, those librairans never, ever let me down!! I love reading non-fiction books and yesterday I got a book called "Mafia Son", it was so good!! I already finished reading it.

7. Discovered the FUNNIEST blog called cakewrecks. Ava and I were looking at them and this one was my favorite posts about unforunate monograms. I was laughing so hard at SOB and Ava kept asking me what was wrong. I told her that was a bad word, she didn't understand at all why I thought it was so funny-ha ha!

I've got to get to bed, I am going to get up SUPER early to finish my living room painting. Happy Wednesday everyone!!

Polka dots and pinwheels Eliza's 1st B-day!!

On Sunday we went Eliza's 1st birthday party!! Eliza is my friend Sabrina's baby daughter. Sabrina is such a great party planner, I know that she has been working for weeks to make sure that EVERYTHING for Eliza's party was perfect.

Here is the cake, it was DELICIOUS!!!


Eliza opening her presents with her Mommy's help. I love how all little kids always crowd around to see all of the birthday presents. We got Eliza an American Girl Bitty Baby. Ava was SOOO excited to give it to her (actually she wanted to keep it for herself-ha ha-but we decided Eliza would love it more!)



Sabrina got this cute little party hat and bib off of etsy. It was adorable but Eliza hated it!! At least we got a few pictures of her in it!


Eliza eating her little cake she didn't know what to think of it but I think she liked the icing.


Since it was a "Pinwheels and Polka Dots party" Ava had to wear a polka dot outfit, here she is with two friends, Gabby and Lauren.


I think Eliza's FAVORITE gift was this playhouse from her Grandma and Aunt, here are some girls at the party posing in front of it.


Brock also went to the party but he avoided me the whole time, I don't think he wanted his picture taken. While we were at the party Graig and Daisy took a little nap here is a picture of the two of them that I took right before we left. Daisy looks soooo uncomfortable but she sleeps like that ALL the time. She's a freak!!


I am STILL painting my hot mess of a living room, right now (because of all the painting) our WHOLE house is a wreck. I cannot wait to be finished with this project!! Here is a little sneak peak of the door in our living room.

Tobacco Road

I am STILL painting, can you believe it?? Really, I am the world's SLOWEST painter and it takes me forever. I have been painting my trim white and the trim around my windows and doors black. I didn't take any pictures yet but I am REALLY liking how it is looking, I think the black and white look good together!!

I told my Mother in law Janice (aka Grandma Jan) about my plans last night and she said it would remind Graig of his childhood. I asked her what she meant and she black and white like the Holstein cows that they had on their dairy farm when Graig was growing up-ha ha!

Today on my lunch break I went and got the paint for my living room and sunroom I have already painted my living room two times since we moved into our house five years ago and I think the sunroom has been painted at least 4 times. I am CONSTANTLY searching for the perfect paint colors and I will be the first one to admit that I am TERRIBLE at picking out paint colors.

A few weeks ago I read the Nester's post about her perfect paint color called Tobacco Road, and I wanted a change in my living room so I am going to give it a try this weekend. The color is a neutral color and Lowe's has the formula that they can look up for you like they did for me today :) The Nester has a picture of the top of her paint can and I took that in to Lowe's too.

Also, on our to do list this weekend is a Little League Tournament, a Craft Show, and Eliza's 1st birthday party!! Eliza is the daughter of Sabrina and Shawn, two of our BFF's

Ok, enough blogging I need to get PAINTING!!! Hopefully I will have some after pictures for you early next week :)

The best $15 I ever spent

Last week my friend Heidi and I went to HUGE plant and flower sale and a green house near where we live. The Green house was going to be closing for the season (since we live in upstate NY the flower/planting season is REALLY short), you could fill up your car with plants and flowers for $30!!! We took Heidi's van and filled it to the brim with flowers and plants. I couldn't believe how many plants we got in her car!
We took them back to Heidi's house and split them up and since Heidi's mom watched our kids so we could go we gave her some too! Here is what I brought home, lots of annuals for outside and some ivy for the inside of our house. It took me a couple of days to plant all of these flowers. I am so glad that I went and got some more because I filled in some of my baskets and pots and I added some color to some of my new flower beds around my deck.
What a great deal!!

Farm Chicks, Paula and The Pioneer Woman

This summer I have been taking a lot of unintended blogging breaks. Every single day something happens and I think I should blog about that but we have been SO BUSY that it just doesn't happen.

Anyway, one of my many goals for this summer is to try new recipes. I feel like we are ALWAYS eating the same things every week and I want to try out new ingredients. So, I just bought two new cookbooks his summer and I am slowly reading through them. I just got The Farm Chicks in the Kitchen: Live Well, Laugh Often, Cook Much this one this week. I love the Farm Chicks!! They have a fabulous website with lots of tips, creative ideas and wonderful recipes. I wish they could come to my house to cook and redecorate. They live in Washington State and every year they have an amazing Farm Chicks show with tons of great vendors and tons of items for your home. I would love to go but since I live on the other side of the country it will probably will never happen unless I win the lottery-ha ha!!



I also bought the new Paula Deen cookbook. Like many bloggers I LOVE Paula Deen and her recipes, her show is on every day when I come home for lunch. She seems so down to earth and friendly and I love how she has her sons on her show all the time. In this new cookbook Paula has a ton of recipes but her family members also contributed recipes and stories, which makes it a great book to read!

Like many bloggers I LOVE the Pioneer Woman, she has wonderful, simple, easy to follow recipes with tons of step by step pictures which make following the recipes SO easy!! Last week I tried her corn casserole
It was delish!! We had it all eaten in less than a day. Here is a picture of my finished product. The Pioneer Woman just started a great recipe only website called Tasty Kitchen. There are so many great recipes on the site, I can't wait to start going through them and finding new ones for our family


Since Brock has Little League almost every night until the first week of August, this isn't the best time to be cooking new thing, so my plan is to gather up new recipes this month and I will start cooking them next month when we are at home more. To be honest most nights we either eat out or grab a sandwich or something else quick before his games.

I don't want to rush through July though because it really is SO MUCH fun going to all of his games and hanging out with all of the other families that go to the games.

A quick update

This summer has been busy, busy, busy for us! I can't believe that July is almost 1/2 over. Our nights can be summed up in one word BASEBALL!! Brock still is having games almost every night and when we get home I am too tired to blog.

On Tuesday, we did have a night off from baseball so Ava and I went out to dinner with two of my friends and their kids. Between the three of us we had 6 kids at dinner. It was fun to catch up with them. Here is a picture of Ava with two of the girls that went with us. It's Ava's friends Mariah and Bella. Ava calls them her cousins. She loves helping them and teaching them new things. She was soooo good to them during dinner.



I love this picture of all of them eating salad.



Last night my sweet neighbor took Ava and her two girls to watch the American Girl Ballet. Ava dressed up and got her American Girl doll all ready for the ballet. She was so excited to go! They had such a great time. There was a tea party before the ballet and Ava loved seeing all the other girls and their dolls. Brock had a baseball game so I stayed home to watch his game but I do want to go next year because Ava had such a great time and she wants to go again next year.

Here is a picture of her before she left, I love that her American Girl doll is sticking out of her bag.




Tomorrow I am off from work and I am going to watch Ava's gymnastics show, that should be fun! She has been going to gymnastics camp all week. Brock has his last day of basketball camp and then he has a Little League Game. I also hope to get some little house projects done so we will have a BUSY day!

2 quick projects

We had ANOTHER baseball game tonight, we played the town where Graig grew up so I think it was a lot of fun for Graig to have Brock play on the field where he played. The game was soooo long, it lasted over 2 hours. We won by a lot, I think the final score was 17-3. We have another game tomorrow night. This is a big game, Brock is pitching so it will be fun to watch!!

Since we have been so busy with baseball games I haven't had much time to work on a lot of projects. I did do a couple of little things over the weekend. I am going to have my personal decorator (AKA my friend Sabrina) over to help me figure out where to put my new projects. I am actually wanting to redecorate my whole downstairs. Graig is thrilled-ha ha

Brock and Ava are with Grandma Jan this week so hopefully I will have time to work on some home projects. We will see Brock and Ava a lot because we have a baseball game tomorrow night and Friday night.

4th of July

This day can be summed up by one word...BASEBALL!! Brock was in a tournament so we were at the baseball field all day. It was so much fun, I absolutely love his baseball games. We all have the best time cheering on our team. It did not feel like 4th of July because it was SO COLD!! I had jeans on and I had a cover on me all day because it was so windy and chilly. Brock's team played two games. We lost one and we won one game. Tomorrow we go back for more games.

During a little break in games my friend Sabrina and I hit some yard sales. I didn't find too much but I did find this vase which I really like. It has sunflowers on it and I love sunflowers so I will find a place for it somewhere!

Tonight, we got together with about 6 other baseball families for a cookout and fireworks. We had a great time and ate SO MUCH!! After a full day of baseball we were all so tired to we left right after the fireworks.

Brock is taking care of our neighbors dog for the weekend so after the cook out Brock and I went over so Brock could take care of the dog.
Tomorrow we have another day full of baseball!!

Fourth of July Weekend!!

Today I started by getting up early and going to work, I was the only one there today and it was so nice!!! I love my co-workers and all the students but it was really great to have the whole day in the office by myself, I got a TON of work done today which was wonderful!!

Graig went golfing with an old friend from high school today and Brock had his golf lesson. Ava hung out with my friend Sabrina and her daughter Eliza. Sabrina was working on stuff for Eliza's first birthday. Eliza's birthday theme is going to be "Pinwheels and Polka Dots." How cute is that going to be? Ava helped Sabrina make some pinwheels today for the party.

This afternoon Graig took Ava to spend the weekend with Grandma Jan. Brock wanted to go see the movie Ice Age so I took him and his friend Thomas to go watch that movie. If you haven't seen it, it's really cute. We really liked it!!

After the movie we went out for pizza and did a little shopping Brock got some new batting gloves which he loves and can't wait to use. I got a couple of new t-shirts and some Bath and Body Works wall flowers. Their wall flowers smell so good!! I have one in almost every room in our house.

Tonight Graig and his friends are having poker night at our house so I went over to Sabrina's to hang out with her sweet little Eliza. Here is a picture of Ava and Eliza from a couple of months ago. Eliza loves her binky's just like Ava did!!

I hope everyone has a great 4th of July!! We are going to spend the day hanging out at the baseball field because Brock is in a baseball tournament. After the games our friends invited us over to their house to have a cookout and watch the fireworks! I am going to make an Oreo Pie to bring to the cookout. It should be a fun day!

Show us where you live Friday!

It's time for another Show us where you live Friday that Kelly's blog is hosting. This time it's outside spaces and garages! I can't wait to see everyone's flowers and outdoor spaces.

This is one of my favorite sayings! I love it.

These are some of my flowers going up the steps on our deck.

I made this chair planter in May, I got the chair at a garage sale for $2. I love the way it turned out!I made this bird bath last year. Here are two of our tomato plants they look a little droopy in this picture. Ava LOVES tomatoesThese flowers are by our side door. I love these flowers by our back door. This is the side of our garage. I put in all the plants last summer. This is the basket that's hanging on our garage. I made my own baskets this year to save some $$. I really like the way they turned out this year. Last but not least, this is the windowbox by our side door.

I hope you enjoyed the tour! It will be fun to look at everyone's outdoor spaces!! We love our outside and spend all of our time outdoors in the summer!

Catch up!

Here are some pictures of Brock and Ava from the last couple of weeks.

This is from Brock's 6th grade graduation. He looks so serious and these pictures are so blurry!! Right after graduation Graig, Brock, Ava and I went out to lunch with Brock's BFF and his family and later in the afternoon all the families from his class had a party together at the park. Brock and Ava and their friends spend A LOT of time jumping on the trampoline!Ava and her friends making home made play dough.Brock and his BFF after the game last night. We won 11-7!!

That's all the pics I have for right now. I have to get ready for work, I have a busy day today, it's the first day of freshman orientation!! Tonight Brock has an all star game, it's the first game of a tournament. Brock is pitching so I will let you know how that goes.

Bloggy Break

I can't believe that I haven't updated my blog in almost two weeks!! I knew that I wanted to take a little blogging break but I didn't think it would last almost two weeks!!

Let me fill you in on what we have been up to over the past couple of weeks. I know everyone has been on the edge of their seats waiting for our family update-ha ha! This update will be quick and with no pictures because I am at work.

1. Brock graduated from 6th grade!!!

2. Ava finished up her 1st grade year, school finally ended this year on June 24.

3. Brock's little league team made it to the championship game in the little league tournament in our town, they didn't win I think the score was 4-2 but we are so proud of his team because no one thought his team would get that far!

4. Brock has been saving his allowance, Christmas money, yard mowing money etc. (Graig is so proud that he loves saving money-ha ha) and bought himself an I-Pod touch last week.

5. Brock went on a bus trip with our Church's youth group last Friday to Hershey Park.

6. Ava is going to take tennis lessons and play softball this summer both things start today.

7. Brock is going to be on the Little League all star team again this summer. Graig is the coach and he scheduled 30 games for the team this summer!! Almost every night in July we have baseball games and tournaments. My favorite tournament starts on Friday. There is a pool right next to the baseball field so when the boys aren't playing they can be swimming! It should be a fun weekend!

I think that's the highlights. I will post some pictures tonight!!
Happy Wednesday!!