happy

Not everything in my life has gone the way I've wanted or expected it to, some big and some small, but despite it all, I have a lot to be happy for. We're all healthy here. Of course, we wish we were a little thinner, but we are healthy, nonetheless. We have two beautiful children, who are happy. Yes, they have their moments, but our kids are happy, and polite, and easy-going and fun.

Sometimes I stop and wonder how I got here. Yesterday, I was washing nicolette's hair in the tub and thought, wow, I am doing exactly what I imagined I would be doing one day. I knew I wanted kids and feel so fortunate to have my babies (who, btw, aren't really babies anymore). It was a struggle for a bit and my dreams were tested, but we got here.

I have many friends who have struggled with infertility and having a baby. It breaks my heart to see people I care about go through that- because I've been there, and it's not fun. At all. I don't know how we got lucky, but God graced us with not one, but two miracles. Sometimes I stop and think how lucky I really am. I don't want to forget that. And I don't want to take a single day, or hour, or minute for granted, because that's just time you can't get back. I look at these smiling faces and hope it's always this easy and fun (I know it won't be). Those smiling face me me smile. And that makes me happy.

We take pictures all the time here. We take a lot of pictures, to capture most things we do. I don't want to forget a moment of these days. I've always taken a lot of pictures. I remember the summer after my senior year of high school and 6 of my very best friends and I went to Disney for the week. I took hundreds of pictures and got them developed while we were still there. Many of those 6 friends were not happy with my constant "photo-shoots" but when we got home they wanted copies of all the fabulous pictures I took. Those were some of the best times of my life. Ok, back to picture taking...

I am the photographer of the family. Jon only takes a picture if I ask him to and many times gives up after one or two shots. Since I am always the one behind the camera, I am very rarely in any shots. Lucy, our favorite friend, was here the other day and captured some great shots of me and each of the kids.

And one of Lucy and the kids. They adore Lucy. She is so good with them and loves them so much!

And these are some shots I got while playing around with my new camera. I love my Nikon d3000, but there is so much to learn! I think I need to take the Valentine's Day decorations down.

And here are some more of our pictures, just enjoying life!

a post of firsts

I got a gift certificate from my wonderful husband out of the blue awhile back and hadn't used it. I love.love.love. to get pedicures and the middle of February in cny is a fabulous time to get one. My parents were headed out to Vegas and my mom wanted to get one, so I thought, hey, why not bring nicolette along. She loves to toes painted by me, so why wouldn't she love a pedicure?



It's hard work being a girl. Do you know how many crazy O.P.I colors there are. I made a mental note to write down the color nicolette chose, but that never happened and the color has escaped me (I am close to 30, ya know!).


You have to sit in massaging chairs.




You have to sit still. Do you know how hard that is for a two-year old?


The girl asked nicolette if she wanted a flower and after thinking loooooong and hard, she opted to keep it!

Nicolette has had her hair trimmed a couple times by me or my mom, but her hair just keeps growing in the back. We wish we could say the same about the sides. Needless to say the mullet was getting bad. I refuse to give her bangs (they are just not my thing), so she needed a trim. My mom's friend Barbara cuts her hair, and mine and trimmed it up for us. She was a perfect angel, sitting very still while her hair was trimmed up. Honestly, you can barely tell, but it looks better and has that freshly cut feeling!

I got 99 problems, but my kicks ain't one

I've been posting a lot about things I've done with nicolette and I feel like I have neglected cole on here. Really, IRL, I haven't. It's just that he's too little to help with a lot of things and tries to eat whatever we are doing. I know kids his age put things in thier mouths, but seriously, this kid LOVES to eat. He eats more than nicolette on most days.

He has saying more and more words lately. He is constantly babbling and yelling. I would love to know what goes on in his head and what he is really saying all the time because man, is this kid loud! I love having a "converstation" with him. He understands me and I make up what I want to hear him saying. Hey, I won't always be able to hear what I want from him.

My baby is growing up. I look at pictures and he is no longer my baby. He has toddler features now, and runs, and talks. He's our last and it's kind of sad to do it all one last time. Having a boy is fun though. I know everyone says girls are more fun, and they are sometimes, but boys really are a lot more fun than I thought they would be. And, let me tell you, cole is all boy.

Check out these cute kicks cole got from his Uncle Luke.

He has another pair, Nike Jordans, that are still in the closet. Yes, his uncle has spoiled him with sneakers, kind of like he spoils himself with sneakers. Seriously, my brother has over 30 pairs. I would expect nothing less from him.

No, cole does not have 99 problems (does he have any??). I just saw a shirt with this saying and it reminded me of my brother, which reminded me to capture these sneakers on my little man's feet.

I will miss these days when they are gone...

Crayons COLOR our world!

There is something about Crayola crayons that brighten my day. I don't know if it brings me back to my childhood or the happiness it brings me to see the flat points of a freshly opened box of crayons. Either way, I happen to love crayons and coloring. Losing or breaking one crayon makes me have to start a new box. Lucky for me they sell for dirt cheap around August. Anyways, I seriously could drop everything right now, grab the Sesame Street coloring book downstairs and color the night away. Coloring brings me peace.

I recently came across this long forgotten idea of melting crayons. I can remember back when I was in middle school and we were hanging out at my bff Jamie's house melting crayons. Then I came across the idea again. So, I headed out to ACMoore and picked up a mini heart pan. I collected all the broken crayons I could find, plus a new box and Jon and my mom helped me peel the paper off. Nicolette helped break them into smaller pieces and we baked them for a short while. They cooled out in the snow and popped out easily! We packaged them up for friends and kept a ton at home!

This might very well become my new favorite thing. Who said kids crafts are just for kids?!

Have a heart day!

We love to celebrate holidays! We get new outfits and do at least one holiday related activity. Valentine's Day was no exception. We got a head start a couple weeks ago and made some hearts with our hands. Cole was less than cooperative, but hey- he doesn't like his hands messy and he wasn't feeling well. I wish these little hands could stay this little forever.

Our next heart themed event was a process. Thank goodness because my two-year old princess would not have lasted for making dough, cutting out heart, frosting and -our favorite- sprinkling (yes, it's a new verb) all in one day. She was happy to help me mix and couldn't wait to lick the beater, all while my 20 pound munchkin slept the day away.

First we had to read the recipe.


Then we had to add some vanilla.


Mix together the wet ingredients.


Add some flour.


And finish off with Nicolette's favorite part!


Later, she was my little helper and rolled, and floured and floured some more, and then some more and then a little bit more. Her little fingers kept making their way into the flour and before we knew it our perfect little hearts were covered in flour. That's the way we like it here.
She kneeded...


and rolled...


and cut out...


and picked up the hearts...


and floured...


and baked!


During our quick trip to Niagara Falls, NY we frosted all our hearts. Nicolette proved to be the very best sprinkler in town. Truely. She saturated the cookie tops with beautiful hearts and pink and red sprinkles. They were perfect. Halfway through our frosting session the little man woke up and wanted to help. He definitely helped to eat our beautiful work.





We can't wait until next year (or St. Patrick's day because ya know, they are already baked and in the freezer, ready for next month)!

There is finally enough!

My little princess was born with almost no hair at all, and then lost most of it shortly after. I remember using gluedots, much to her daddy's dismay, just to keep a bow in her hair. Then she got these new bows and they seemed to hold the little bit of hair she did have, so that made me happy! It wasn't until right before her 2nd birthday that her hair started to grow in more and I could maybe get it into a teeny tiny ponytail. Now at almost 2 1/2 years she finally has hair! I can't quite pull the mullet into a ponytail in back, but we can do some pretty cute things with it (if she'll me, that is!).

I was at my favorite store, Target, and couldn't resist picking up some clips they had on clearance. I bought ribbon a couple weeks ago to make her bow and I am hoping I can finish them up today, but in the meantime we needed some new ones!